To Stop A Criminal
by Ionuneos
Summary: Chris Redfield is reluctantly dispatched to New York to take down some giant, green monster. Things start well, but that doesn't last long...What was that about Wesker? -MvC3-
1. The Team

**A/N:** After watching a few (read: almost all) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 videos that are out there, it was inevitable that headcanon would develop. This story is the result of that. Consequently, that means that some details _might_ be a bit skewed from fact. Please, enjoy at your leisure!

-**MVC**-

This was one hell of a night.

Everything was fine just a few hours ago. Right up until the phone rang, anyway. I didn't pay it any mind personally, but my superior had a different opinion. I had tried not to eavesdrop on the conversation. However, listening in is pretty much unavoidable when there isn't anyone else to talk to or anything else to focus on. I knew I was in trouble the moment that the words, "I'll dispatch him right away," left his mouth.

Things right after that are a blur. They don't matter, anyway. All I really care to remember is that I was flown by helicopter to New York after being told that some massive green thing was terrorizing the urban part of the state. While running for the awaiting chopper, the boss decided to tell me that it was roughly seven feet tall and humanoid in shape. At first, I appreciated the heads up, but it was a long ride over and I got thinking. Are there other massive green things that I would get confused by? I'm pretty sure if I came across anything that fit a description like that, I would need to take it down anyway.

My ride docked on the roof of a large building. I recognized where we were instantly; New York, New York. From as high up as I was, the city reminded me too much of a maze. Roads for the motorists, sidewalks for the pedestrians, and alleyways for the stupid who think they can take a shortcut without getting mugged. Living here had to be an acquired taste.

I jumped out, and apparently not a moment too soon. I barely got to hit the ground below me before the helicopter took off. It was past sunset, so I lost visual contact with it almost immediately. I didn't let it bother me. There was something about gripping a fully loaded pistol that gave me a sense of confidence.

Fifteen stories up, it was hard for the artificial lights even in a town like this to reach me. It was dark, but I could make most things out. Vents that filtered air into the building were ahead of me and to the right a little; some sort of chimney was puffing out unnatural levels of smoke in the corner; and a gigantic billboard was on my left. I knew there had to be a staircase to get into the building somewhere, but that didn't catch my eye right away. I had to hope I wouldn't find it the hard way.

I began walking toward the edge of the building to see if the creature I was hunting had hit this part of the city yet. I couldn't even take my third step before there was a deafening sound, like a crash, followed fittingly by a small tremor. It would have been fantastic if the thing had just gotten here. Maybe I could have stopped it before it did much damage.

Then I heard it breathing.

With all the reluctance I'd ever had, I realized that I didn't find this thing. It found me. I jerked my entire body around and witnessed the form with my unwilling eyes. The descriptions couldn't have been more perfect. It was really big, and it was really green. It was nighttime, and I could still make out the jungle-like hue that it had. It was also humanoid. So much so, I had to wonder if it actually had been human at some point. If it was, then there was the slightest chance I could end this without a pounding headache.

"Freeze!" I yelled, pointing the gun at it. It was an ironic command, since the only movement it was making was breathing. Granted, even its breaths were intimidating. "I need you to surrender!"

"Hulk surrenders to no one! Hulk smash!"

And it talked. It was instinct that made me grip the gun even harder. Its voice was like thunder, which only made me more startled considering I wasn't expecting to hear any words out of it. I frowned and grunted at the words that were about to leave my own mouth. "No. Hulk no smash. Hulk quietly lay on ground."

This time, the more predictable thing happened. It charged at me like a stampeding bear. I'm not too familiar with getting charged by people that are even bigger than me, but I went through too much training to be hit by an attack like that. I rolled to the side at the last second so it couldn't change its direction, then stayed down on one knee as I aimed the gun at it again. "I said freeze!"

"Hulk say no."

It started walking toward me. It wasn't the blind dash that it had made before; this reminded me more of that cocky swagger that Wesker liked to use. The difference between then and now is that the world shook every time this thing took a step, not to mention that the muscle in its shoulder is bigger than my head.

I tried getting out of the way, but forgot to account for one last thing. Compared to Wesker, the creature's reach was like a football field. Its massive arm reached out and grabbed me by the side of my neck. As soon as the hand made contact, I could feel my world start turning black. Its grip was unlike anything I'd had the pleasure of putting up with before. I could tell that it wasn't even using all of its power to crush me. Any more force, and my head was almost definitely coming off.

I had only one option occur to me. Using what little was left of my will, I shakily pointed the pistol at it and fired, then again. The recoil of each shot automatically lifted my arm, along with the gun a bit higher, causing each bullet to hit something new. Life was getting squeezed out of me, so I had a hard time paying attention to where each shot went. All I know is I started somewhere in its mid-section and ended dangerously close to its neck.

It dropped me. At first, I thought the one-sided firefight had worked. Then I regained just enough of my wits to realize that it wasn't even looking at me anymore. With an expression rivaling that of a rock, its head was looking toward the south end of the building. I tried following its gaze, but even in my half-conscious state, I didn't notice anything. Hulk, or whatever, quite obviously did. Without giving me any indication that it remembered I was there, it sprinted forward and leaped straight off the building.

I counted them. Six seconds later, there was a sound like a nuclear explosion had just struck. Really, it was just that thing smashing into the pavement below. A sympathetic part of me wondered if it was okay, but that question answered itself when I heard and felt it start to run off again.

There wasn't any time to waste. My life had finally quit flashing before my eyes, which helped greatly in me scrambling to my feet. I had to catch that thing, and sitting on the roof wasn't going to do that. I took a few moments to reload my weapon, then frantically looked around for that staircase.

Without even realizing it, fifteen minutes slipped by me somehow. I had made it to the eleventh floor, but I still wasn't sure where I was. It seemed like the past four floors were all attics. Not only did they have nothing but boxes in them, none of them were marked. I didn't want to spend much time sifting through them, and even if I did, the lighting wasn't ideal. Still, that was for the best. It was afterhours by now, so there shouldn't be a soul left in the building. I couldn't say what that Hulk's game was, but if it was hurting people, he wouldn't have any incentive to come through here. That would give me a chance to finally get back to earth, since the helicopter couldn't have dropped me off down there. If I could get to that point, I wouldn't mind going round two with it.

I was badly pressed for time, but I couldn't help myself from slowing down when I neared the last few steps going into the tenth floor. The moon shone enough light through the windows to let me see the room I was in. Scattered through the entire room was six enormous machines. I ran up to them to get a better look. Things quickly fell into place at that point.

The apparatus were made with steel. There was a miniature conveyer belt that ran through them, with a drop-off point being an abrupt end. Whatever went on the belt would fall into a large bin that was set up for the purpose of catching it. It was obviously too small for most things to fit onto, but a few sheets of paper would slide through without a problem. I squinted and happened to notice the words "Daily Bugle" written in a fancy font on the sides of the machines. The name itself wasn't recognizable, but I had to guess that it was a newspaper. That made sense; all of those boxes upstairs must have been nothing but blank sheets of paper. For a city this big, a place like this probably needs that much paper.

It was reassuring to finally know where I was, even if there was hardly a chance it would matter. There was no way anyone would want to stay here any longer than they had to. That meant no trouble for me. I brushed past the machines and picked up the pace.

One floor, then two. I lost track of how many elevators I passed, but I wasn't going to take a chance on anything I didn't need to.

I was passing through a hallway on the seventh floor when a sound caught my attention. It was particularly effective since I hadn't heard a noise come from this building so far that I hadn't produced. I grabbed my pistol from the holder it had been in and tried quieting my footsteps. The hall wasn't that long, but it had plenty of doors along its sides. It would have been frustrating, since the sound could have come from any of them. Luckily, something told me it had come from the room with a light on. The door was shut, but shards of artificial light broke past cracks on the top and bottom of it anyway. It was going to be awkward at best if it turned out to be nothing, but I couldn't let this go without investigating it. One room in the entire building was just too unusual.

I sidled to the wall next to the door and mentally counted to three. When I was ready, I spun around and nearly broke the door off of its hinges with one of the strongest kicks I could manage. As an army of one, I flooded into the room. It turned out to be an unimpressively small room, which would be bad for a fight. A computer desk, appropriately fitted with a computer, was stashed into the best corner of the room possible. A different desk and hundreds of newspaper clippings laid around the room, but I found myself without the ability to spare any attention.

Standing in front of the computer was a man. Judging by the way he was dressed, I was already ready to send him to the psychiatric ward. He wore a tight costume with an apparently thought-out, but still pretty random design of alternating red and blue. The mask he wore had disgustingly large eyes on it, like a big bug. When he turned to face me, no doubt alerted by my unsubtle appearance, I glanced at an insignia of a black arachnid on his chest. I'd come across many odd things in my time, not excluding zombies and super villains, but I was now convinced that I'd seen it all. One glaringly clear thing was that it was very likely he didn't work here.

"Freeze!" I shouted for the second time tonight, aiming the gun at what appeared to be an unexpectedly toned body.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to point at people?" I could tell by his voice alone that he wasn't any older than a young adult. How smug his words came out irritated me, but only went on to prove my claim. "It could be considered rude, you know."

He was more confident in his abilities than I thought. Without any consideration for how I might react to him, he jumped towards the closest wall and stuck to it. The action reminded me exactly of a Licker, sick creatures that could do the same thing. Unlike those things, this guy was moving at an incredible speed for maneuvering on a wall.

I was out of options. I quickly fixed my aim and squeezed the trigger hard enough to feel a bullet leave the barrel at an accelerated rate. Some things I've taken out before needed more than one shot, but none of them were human. I had no idea how he was sticking to the wall, but I knew he was human.

I almost couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw that he had the reflexes that were necessary to react to a bullet. He pushed himself off of the wall and towards the ceiling, near the lighting fixture, where he once again clung to. He did that fast enough to leave at least half a second in between the jump and the bullet hitting the wall where he was.

"Don't they hand out a booklet these days?" he asked, once again not taking me seriously. "Something that mentions that the guy in red tights is really, really hard to shoot?"

He lifted his hand up to face me and lowered his two middle fingers into his palm. It was odd, but only for the nanosecond that went by before a stream of gray fluid shot from his wrist. The liquid solidified almost as soon as it touched oxygen, creating what looked like a rope. I could tell it was aimed for my gun, and it was time to show some reflexes of my own.

I lifted the same arm up that was holding my weapon so that substance would meet with my muscle. Whatever it was happened to be sticky and cold by the time it touched me; I wasn't bothered by either. With my free hand, I grabbed the blade that I always keep handy and chopped the thin wire like it was butter. I looked up to see him withdraw a bit from surprise.

"Well! I'm impressed!" he exclaimed. I couldn't tell if he was still being sarcastic or not. "You're an interesting one, pal."

I instinctively lined the crosshairs back up with bug boy's head. "Have you even seen how you're dressed?"

"Heeyy," he drawled. "My mom picked this out for me." He dropped down from the ceiling, acrobatically flipping over so he would land on his feet. Once again, I couldn't help but feel like he didn't care I was pointing a gun at him. "Let's put the cards out on the table, chief. JJ is too cheap to hire a body like you to keep this place under wraps at bedtime. And yet, you're attacking the local neighborhood-friendly Spider-Man. That means I got you pinned down as the newest bad guy I'll find myself repeatedly dealing with. Let me guess, you're with the blond guy with a trench coat?"

"Blond?" I echoed, simultaneously lowering my gun a bit.

It became obvious that he didn't see that as a ceasefire. In fact, he must have seen it as an opportunity. He sprinted forward and knocked my pistol out of my hands before I could do anything about it. He tried following it up with a punch aimed at my ribs, but by this time, I was already back in the game. I grabbed his hand with my own and was immediately shocked by how much force I had to use to hold him back. His figure, though in-shape, still looked scrawny through the uniform. A punch like that wasn't going to be any lighter than one of my own.

"Whoa...You take vitamins?" he muttered, trying unsuccessfully to yank his hand out of my grip.

Apparently, we both realized what his next move was going to be. He just happened to realize it first. He didn't let me crush his hand very long before he brought his other one up, not in a punch, but something harder to counter. He squeezed his palm again, and the same substance from before came gushing out from his wrist. It collided with my eyes, leaving me totally blinded.

I didn't hesitate to shove him away and grab my knife again. I wasn't very keen about putting a sharp blade to the side of my head, but this stuff liked me way too much to be pulled off easily.

When my sight was freed, I was a little surprised to see that he hadn't stuck around. I was alone in the room, spare a single strand of that material. It was attached to the ceiling and still moving. I got a hold of it to give it a small tug. He definitely could have used this stuff to swing through the open door. It seemed primitive and unnecessary to me, but so was that costume he wore.

I had no time to waste seeing what he was searching for on the computer before I got here. It hadn't even taken me three seconds to un-blind myself, which meant there was no way he could have gotten far. He must have known that I wasn't going to stay incapacitated for long; in his haste, he forgot about the gun he had knocked off me. I wasn't about to curse at fortune, though. I got a strong hold of the handle and ran through the only doorway in the room.

Back in the hallway, it was impossible to miss a second strand of goop attached to the ceiling. He must have used this to switch directions. There was a set of double doors at the end of the hall, and physics dictated that his swing's arc would have launched him right through there.

I wasn't ready to barge in. I couldn't help but feel he would be expecting that.

That's when inspiration struck.

I charged forward. There wasn't much time to get momentum, but I didn't need that much to begin with. When I was several inches from the doors, I dived forward. While I was in midair, I twisted around to face the other way.

It was painful as my head smashed into the door, but it did the job of opening it for me. The entire room was close to pitch black; luckily, I could see all that I needed to. I hit the ground on my back while looking and aiming in the direction of the ceiling. Before my eyes could focus on him, I heard a satisfying "Uh-oh." Just like I'd thought, he had clung to the wall above the door, waiting to ambush me. That backfired on him. Then I fired on him.

I wasn't as forgiving this time. Three, four, five, six. My pistol carried twenty bullets in a cartridge, and this guy was going to eat all of them if that's what it took. He used his inhuman reflexes to keep dodging while never leaving the wall, but I could tell I kept getting closer to hitting him.

Sixteen, seventeen. This was getting bad. If he knew I needed to stop and reload soon, with as fast as he moved, he could tie me to the floor before I had the chance. I fired one more bullet and, while hoping he wasn't expecting it, got to my feet as fast as I could.

"Whew," he sighed, finally dropping to the floor. He squatted on the ground, which reminded me more of a mammal predator than an insect one, which I assumed this guy was supposed to be. "You play rough. Where were you when the Lizard was around?"

My gun was still aimed at him. It only had two bullets left, but I couldn't let him know that. "My questions first. Who are you?"

He raised his hand up. It didn't look like he was going to shoot at me this time. He looked more like he was stunned. "You-You haven't heard of me? Really? ...Not even a little bit?"

I didn't react. I wasn't going to dignify that with a response.

"It's Spider-Man, pal. I'll grant you, I know what this looks like, but I'm really one of the good guys."

"Since when do good guys wear masks and break into buildings?"

He stood up and folded his arms. Those creepy eyes stayed on me. I followed them closely with the pistol. "That happened around the same time they started using guns and breaking into buildings. I hate to say it, but you got as much explaining to do as me."

"I'm here to track down a green monster that's terrorizing-" I started to explain, but got cut off.

"Who, the Hulk?" the self-proclaimed Spider-Man asked. "That guy's a teddy bear. He might look like a nightmare and trample over buildings every now and then, but he'll be fine in a few hours."

"I'll leave that up to my superior's discretion." I changed the subject. "What are you doing in this building?"

He gave a long pause. I tried figuring out what might be going through his head, but couldn't think of anything. Maybe he was just debating on how much to tell me. "Look. I spotted a really shady guy earlier. That's par for the course in New York, but there was just something wrong about this guy. He handed over a ton of weapons I'd never seen before, and didn't get anything in return but a metal briefcase. By the time I got there, the party was already over. That's why I'm here. This is the city's biggest newspaper. If anybody knows about him, it'd be in this database."

"The guy you thought I worked for earlier?"

"You don't?"

I reluctantly lowered my gun. It didn't end well last time, but Spider-Man didn't sound threatening anymore. If anything, he was just as interested in me as I was him. "Wesker..." I sighed.

"Who?"

"Albert Wesker. I can't say for sure, but how you're describing him is right up his alley. He'll trade anything to get what he wants, and it usually comes in small packages."

The masked man set his hands on his hips. "Good. So you're friends."

"Hardly." I holstered my barely loaded gun and started walking toward him. "I've been after that guy for years. I work for the BSAA. Chris," I said as I lifted a hand for him to shake. "Chris Redfield."

Probably a tad confused, he hesitantly grabbed the hand. "Uh...Spider. Spider-Man."

"You gave me a hell of a run there." He might dress oddly, but he deserved praise for keeping me on my toes. I was already rather relieved I didn't need to fight him anymore. "I suppose you couldn't tell me why this Hulk character was running south?"

"South? That's where-"

He stopped. It was an unusual, not to mention inconvenient place to stop a sentence, but I didn't have time to question him before he spoke again. This time, it wasn't where he left off. "Spider-sense. Look out!"

I was past confused by this time, so I had to be thankful that Spider-Man decided to give me a shove.

I heard only a sharp ping, like a sword was just taken out of its sheath. Soon after that, a slice through empty air; I realized with horror that the air hadn't been empty a minute ago. If the oversized, but friendly bug didn't push me, I would have been on the wrong end of whatever that chop was.

Acting quickly, I could hear another produced sound, but I recognized this one. Spider-Man launched some more webbing. At first, I couldn't tell what he was aiming at. Then all of the lights in the room came on, and I decided that I had my answer.

The room I was in turned out to be a cafeteria all along. It seemed unusual to have a cafeteria seven stories off the ground, but that only made me wonder if this newspaper was so big that it could afford that. It reminded me a lot of the cafeteria at school when I was a kid. Long wooden tables with benches fixed on them, plentiful enough in number to accommodate at least most of these Daily Bugle workers, were neatly aligned. An impressive montage of metal canisters were lodged inside of a counter on the opposite side of the room. I could only imagine food went in them. The floor was cold and hard; then again, I had known that from landing spine-first on it a little earlier.

Some things came to mind right off the bat. Looking around, I didn't see any door that might lead downstairs. Was this a dead-end? Besides that, Spider-Man knew exactly where the light switch was. Maybe he has night vision in that mask of his, but somehow I doubt that. Just how many times has he broken in this place to know where the light switch was?

At least for the time being, both of those were trumped by the last thing. Spider-Man and I were no longer alone. We probably never were. Crouching between us was a woman. Well-built, admittedly, but too feral for my tastes. She wore a two-piece outfit consisting of a tight bra, and tighter pants. They were both midnight black, so combined with the same color hair, she didn't have much of a problem blending into the darkness. The skin she revealed, which happened to be a lot, was perfectly smooth. That didn't sit well with me. Coming from somewhere behind her knuckles was a pair of steel claws for each hand. No one that wore something like that had perfect skin.

"My, Wolverine!" Spider-man exclaimed. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was smiling behind his mask. "You look awful pretty today!"

"Don't call me that!" she ruthlessly bit back. Afterward, she didn't show much trouble in lunging after him. He did an agile back flip to dodge, and the ensuing fight was inevitable.

Though it wasn't the hardest, I could comfortably say that I had the most awkward situation to deal with: watching. None of my weapons could help Spider-Man without risk. I trusted my aim, and I was certainly aware that he could dodge my bullets; but I wasn't going to risk losing the only person who could give me a lead on Wesker to friendly fire. I figured that the least I could do is reload my used-up pistol in case it was needed.

"This one a friend of yours?" I called out, unintentionally taunting him into losing some of his focus.

It didn't matter. He bent his entire back backwards until seventy percent of his body was parallel to the ground. It dodged a horizontal slashing attack for him, if not barely. "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

He gave a strong push with his legs, sending himself flying backwards. He crashed into and stuck to the wall that stood there, then used both of his wrists to ensnare the girl in thick webbing.

That tactic didn't work long against me, and I think he knew it wasn't going to work long now, either. He shot a strand of substance at the ceiling and swung in my direction. He gave a warning of, "Tag!" as he did so. I was about to charge in when he twisted around and attached himself to the wall. He told me to hang on. I glanced over quickly at the femme fatale; she was still struggling with the bondage, so I granted Spider-Man a second to chat.

"Don't you have any other weapons on you?" he asked. It was more of a plea, which sounded odd coming from a guy with that much going for him. "Something that doesn't involve putting holes into her?"

I looked at my pistol. It had gotten me through the most challenging parts of my career as a BSAA officer, making it hard to replace. That said, I always made sure to have back up plans.

I granted the request with a nod and set the gun away. In its place, I pulled out a personal favorite: the electric rod, or as I know it by, the dummy stick. With a flip of one switch, the complex machine surged to life. Touching this thing is something you don't do twice. A tap is enough to make a dog whimper and totally fry a squirrel; to humans, more exposure is needed before anything serious happens. Still, a quick whack is plenty to put someone out of commission for awhile.

My gaze shifted back to Spider-Man. I still wasn't used to a person who could comfortably sit on a wall. Thankfully, Spider-Man wasn't used to a handheld bug zapper. I felt like we were even. "Whoa. Remind me to keep the 'your mom' jokes to myself."

I heard the sound of something being shredded. Without even looking, I could have come to the conclusion that the woman had found a way to get her claws through the webbing. I stood in a defensive fighting pose while Spider-Man kept talking. For whatever reason, she seemed to be waiting until he finished.

"One more thing. I'd bet my web shooters that her claws are made of adamantium."

Web shooters. So that's how he does it. "Meaning?" I questioned impatiently.

"Meaning you aren't going to be breaking them. They, however, can likely break you."

"Always nice to get a warning like that." I said it sarcastically, but there was some obvious truth to it too.

I knew I had only one chance. If these "adamantium" claws are as strong as Spider-Man says, they'll dice the dummy stick into unsalvageable pieces. If this had any chance of ending non-violently, I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't risk even swinging the thing until I was assured a hit, either.

This young lady didn't want to give me any more time than she already had. I would need to come up with tactics on the fly, because she charged straight for me.

As the repeated gymnastics proved, I was nowhere near as limber as Spider-Man or this girl was. I had one thing these kids didn't, though: experience. This girl was showboating her moves as much as Spider-Man did; flying spinning kicks, unbelievably smooth combo attacks with her claws, and a couple nimble dodges when I decided to stop being on the defensive. But what she had in finesse, she lacked in unpredictability. Those claws of hers aren't very dangerous when you give a BSAA member half a second to react to them.

I found an opportunity and took it. After a missed strike, she left herself open enough for me to sneak an uppercut into her chin. That stunned her just long enough for me to bring my leg up and give her revealed tummy a front kick. I didn't use any less force than when I had kicked that door open earlier. If she'd had anything to eat lately, I expected her to lose it right after that.

The kick definitely widened the rather close-range gap we had fallen into. She ungracefully stumbled back a ways, then must have realized that and used her momentum to do a back flip. Her inertia vanished at that point. She crouched into the same position I'd first seen her in. Somehow, that pose made her devilish glare more intimidating. I guess it was a good thing that the leer didn't last for long; she got distracted when something caught her eye.

As another egotistical way to show off, she did a single cartwheel to her right. The act brought her much closer to one of the tables, which didn't make much sense at first. It definitely made sense when she lifted her arms up and attacked the bench in a perfect one-two motion. The first slice dismembered the wood from the table itself, and the second broke it off from the rest of the long seat.

That didn't take her any longer than two seconds. After that, she sank the two-pronged claws of her left hand into the modified chunk of wood. A spin helped her gain momentum, and a sudden jerk of her wrist caused the fragment of the bench to be hurled into my direction.

The speed it was moving was incredible. I didn't even feel comfortable going around it; my only way was through it. I quickly and safely handed off the electric rod to my opposite hand. I leaned back, bringing my now-free right hand with me. When the projectile was within range, I launched a punch like a spring toy being activated. When my gloved hand made contact with it, the fragile weapon smashed into many more pieces than the woman had initially carved it into. All of the remaining chunks flew past both sides of my head.

Spider-Man said nothing, but a part of me had to wonder if he was impressed.

I shook out my hand. I had hit worse, but the odd dimensions of the wood and the speed it had been flying at promised me that there would be a mark there by the morning. My opponent didn't give me much time to recover; she bolted forward, but again, I could already tell what she was going to do.

The claws had a flaw. If the arm they were on got blocked, they were useless. As she tried to scratch me with her right hand, I grabbed her arm just beneath the wrist. When the left one came around, I caught it with the hand that was still holding onto the bug zapper. She was formidable, but her arms didn't have much mass, making it not so hard a task to accomplish. I thought now would be a grand time to give her a little shock. She thought otherwise.

"Chris!" the masked man screeched from the sidelines.

That wasn't helpful, and I wasn't even sure what was wrong. Then I noticed that, despite standing within inches of each other cross-armed, this woman brought her foot up. It takes more than a kick to take me out, and she apparently prepared just for that reason. I heard another pinging sound, the same kind I had heard when she first attacked us with the claws. I managed to glimpse at her foot and realized that a retractable spike had been shoved out of her boot. It was far too late to react in any way, so I could do nothing but watch as the knife-sharp stick dug into my abdomen.

I was winded, and fell to the ground with a knee. She let me; as soon as she had made contact, she rolled backwards. I gripped my stomach with my free hand and looked up at her. She reminded me so much of an animal. Looking down at me without mercy, but without hatred. Like she didn't want to hunt me, but rather, needed to.

As I thought about that, I could only wonder if this entire fight could be avoided.

It was time for an acting job. I would be horrible on improv shows, but the fact was that her spike wasn't very long. As far as things to get impaled by, I'd say that was one of the better ones. If I could get her to believe I was in more pain than I was, she might be more willing to talk. "What...do you want?" I said, stretching the pain in my voice as far as I could.

"You're in my way..." she muttered. Her words were calm, but more annoyingly, they didn't really answer my question.

Spider-Man spoke up. Unlike the quiet tone the woman used, his was polar opposite. He was mad. Whether he was mad at her for injuring me or mad at himself for tagging me in, I doubt I'd ever know. "What is this, 'break into the Bugle' night? Should we start an online fan club?"

"We might be...on the same side!" I yelled with agony. "Tell us your name. Who are you looking for?"

Similar to at least one other occasion tonight, she took her time before answering with anything. Just like that same occasion, I tried to figure out why'd she'd have trouble telling us something. And in the same vein, I came up with nothing. It took close to, but under five seconds for her to respond. "Too many questions."

She dashed forward. It was time to end my facade.

When she was in a reasonable distance of doing so, she took a flying leap towards me. I waited until then; until I knew she couldn't change her direction. I swiftly rolled to my side, accidentally leaving a drop of blood on the ground as my stomach brushed by it. I thought that her claws might go flying through the plated floor, but that was only a passing alternative. It was more important for me to get on my feet than to think about that.

By the time she hit the floor, directly where I would have been, I was already standing. I took a similar jump at her as I raised the electric rod up.

She perhaps wanted to flatter me by mimicking me move for move. She dodged with a roll, completely unfazed by the fact I was supposed to be injured. Then she climbed to her feet and immediately lunged again. The process literally repeated itself, and I did nothing to change that. For the second time, I rolled out of the way.

She must have expected me to do the same thing again. She attempted to turn into a ball and spin away, but she wasn't prepared for me to account for that. I caught her mid-roll with the dummy stick, bringing what I supposed to be the end of this long battle.

She was facing the floor. As the electric rod did its thing, I was close enough to feel the volts circulate through her entire body. I didn't expose her to it for long, but I trusted it was enough to convince her to talk. A genuine scream of pain told me so.

"It's Electro's fault for not copyrighting that," Spider-Man commented. I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but by this time I'd come to expect that from him. He leaped off the wall in order to get a little closer to the two of us. "Chris, are you all right?"

I was until you said that. I came close to saying that out loud. Instead, I set the electric rod away and used my newly freed hand to cover up my spike wound. "I've been worse, trust me. I'll be fine."

Spider-Man seemed to believe my claim well enough. He nodded at me, then squatted down. Those inhuman muscles of his still amazed me. "I hope you learned your lesson, young lady," he reprimanded, of course speaking to the girl. "On the positive side, I could name a few cellmates that I'm sure you'll get along with."

"...I'm not going to jail!"

There was a list of things that caught me off guard. Her words were only half of the problem; the way she said them was just as bad. She didn't sound like she was in the least bit of agony. I began wondering if her earlier cry and motionlessness was a part of the same act that I role-played seconds before.

Then there was the more physical side of things. Without any warning that I noticed, she spun around to lay on her back while taking a stab at Spider-Man at the same time. I didn't notice anything, but thankfully, he must have. He did a last second dodge, not because he wanted to, but that was all the time he had to react.

She did the equivalent of a break dance, extending her legs in different directions and spinning. It was either to show off, or more likely, get the two of us away from her. Either way, it worked to get both of us to back off.

And after that, she jumped to her feet. Besides the panting, she didn't look the least bit worse for wear.

"Accelerated healing..." the bug spoke up from his perch back on the wall, sounding deep in thought. "Of course! Now I know you must be related to Wolvie. First cousins, perhaps?"

She retracted her claws. I was glad for that, but didn't doubt in the least that a sudden movement would send them flying back out. "Call me X-23. Everyone else does."

Spider-Man fell to the ground, apparently feeling like the fighting was over with. I wish I knew where he got his confidence from. "X-23? Sounds like the name of a science experiment, not a-"

A sharp leer. A penetrating glare that I could feel, and it wasn't even aimed at me. Poor Spider-Man probably started to sweat under his mask.

"Uh...Okay. Touchy subject. That's worth keeping in mind." He switched tones, effortlessly going from recovery from the awkward to a more serious note. "How did you get in here? Or, I guess more importantly, what did you want in here?"

She brushed several strands of hair away from her eyes. She held a more distinct beauty in her facial features when they didn't look like they were about to maul me. "I need to get higher. This was the tallest building I found first."

"Higher in the city?" I chimed in. "Why?"

X-23 shook her head. She folded her arms adamantly, but the entire time, avoided eye contact with me.

Silence filled the room after that. Spider-Man broke it, but it took him awhile. "You can imagine how many questions I have, but here's the most important one: We're the good guys...Are you?"

The woman turned around. It was odd; to me, it looked like she was turning shy. It didn't make much sense. At least it fit in with the rest of the night. "...A helicopter took off. I want to find it."

The answer shocked me. If anything, it was more of a response to the question I asked a full minute ago than Spider-Man's. After a moment, I realized that it vaguely gave him an answer, too. There's no need to be labeled a good or bad guy. There are just as many people out there that do things their own way without fitting into either of those classifications.

With a reply like that came more questions. Questions were dangerous. The more we asked her, the more distant she seemed to get. Could she have seen my helicopter? But what would she care about that for? Those inquiries became obsolete when Spider-Man turned his head towards me.

"Hey, that reminds me. That Wesker guy you told me about, he took off in a chopper after getting what he wanted."

"Wesker?" X-23 suddenly became fascinated by us. Passively interested enough to shift her head back around, anyway. "You know of him?"

I could ask her the same question. I didn't. Instead, the three of us shared glances with each other.

There was something to be done, and I couldn't put it off any longer. I gave the two of them my back and brought a hand up to my ear. I gently pushed a button on the headset that was always there, then kept my hand there to dig the device further into my ear. The headset wasn't exactly static-free, and if either of the others talked, I was bound to miss something. "HQ, this is Chris. Do you read me?"

"Copy," I managed to pick up from in between the frustrating static. It was a male voice, but anything other than that was beyond me. "What's the situation?"

"Things have changed," I replied, silently praying to myself that a long explanation wasn't going to be necessary. "Wesker's out and about around here. I'm going after him instead."

"Your mission is to neutralize that creature. You have orders."

I frowned. Only in the BSAA can you be near the top of the list and still be treated like a newly-recruited search dog. "In that case, I'm changing my orders. I have strong reason to believe that the creature isn't a danger to anybody. If Wesker's around, I'm not going to let him get away."

There was a long break. Nothing but static filled my ear. I had to hope he wasn't saying anything that was getting lost to bad reception, but I doubted that anyway. With a moment of spare time, I realized that the other two could only hear half of this conversation. I briefly wondered what they were thinking, but the person on the other side of this microphone broke my concentration on that.

"Your mission's been changed. You have clearance to use any force necessary to take down Wesker."

I love it when I get my way. It's a shame it doesn't happen much. "Affirmative. Chris out."

Before turning around, I looked down at my wound. I should have told that guy to get the worker's comp papers out for me. I gave a small, refreshing sigh, then turned about face to the other two. Neither had moved. X-23 even still had her head turned.

"You're a lot better at dealing with management than I am, bud," Spider-Man granted me.

It was a welcome, if not out of place compliment, but I ignored it. Even if it wasn't very modest of me doing so, I considered these two my troops. Troops' morale was only as good as they're rallied. "I can't say I know what you two personally have against Wesker, but I'd call it pretty evident that all of us want him taken down. As far as I'm concerned, it would be redundant to do it alone."

Spider-Man seemed to know where I was going with that. It wasn't very hard to figure out, so I wasn't too impressed by it. "I don't know, Chris. I'm glad you're on our side, but I just got done saying I'm not a great team player. I'm more of a solo act."

That was a disappointing blow. As far as physical strength is concerned, I've never had a better partner than Spider-Man. I considered dropping the idea of forming a unit, but was pleasantly caught off-guard when the talking costume went on.

"I'll tell you what. If you can get Little Miss Sunshine to join the party, you can count me in."

I turned to look at X-23. Somewhere in all of that, she had turned her head back around. She appeared completely disinterested, but she hadn't moved yet; that was about the only optimistic thing I could pull out of this. "X-23," I said her name for the first time. It was then I realized just how long of a name it was. It only has three characters in it, but it takes longer to say than Spider-Man. "You're the most pivotal member of the team. You-"

"Gee, thanks," Spider-Man cut in.

I glared at him. He wanted X-23 on the team, and if throwing him under the bus was all it took, I was about to do it. "X-23 is the one who saw Wesker last! She knows better than either of us where he is right now. Without her, we're taking a blind shot-"

For the second time, I was interrupted. This one I didn't mind nearly as much. "South. He was heading...south."

My argument froze in its place. She still hadn't turned around, but X-23 spoke as calmly as ever. I didn't say anything; maybe she'd want to continue.

Apparently, she did. "By now, he has passed this building. I might know where he is going. I would join you if you can give me a faster means of travel."

I hardly wasted a second. She almost didn't get to the end of her sentence before I jammed the call button on my headset again. "This is Chris. Get me a helicopter. Now!"

"Granted. MDR, make a 180 and return to Redfield."

I brought my hand back down. "It'll be here in minutes." With that, I stuck my hand into the center of the triangle that the three of us had created. I added a simple word: "Partners?"

X-23 was first. I could tell she was reluctant; if Spider-Man didn't play well with others, I could only imagine what X-23's thoughts of teamwork were. Still, I felt her soft hand lay on top of mine. Right after that, a red glove sat on top of hers. I noticed that Spider-Man waited until X-23 had gone first, but as long as he was in, I didn't care.

I felt like the black sheep of this group. Not only because I lacked any "superpowers," but also because I favored teamwork much more to solo missions. I could handle myself, but I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want an extra set of eyes watching your back for you.

Thoughts about my philosophy got shot through the window when I heard a close-range scraping noise. I recognized it quickly; X-23 launched her retractable claws. That would have been more acceptable if my hand wasn't beneath hers, and Spider-man's on top.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, startled, stumbling back.

"Hey!" Spider-Man also yelled, leaping back and leeching on the wall.

When I recovered from the surprise, I looked at X-23. For the first time since we'd met her, there was a smile on her face. A mischievous smirk.

I was reluctant to admit that I was the oldest one here, but I could still appreciate a practical joke. She hadn't hurt anyone by it, as evidenced by a lack of any pain. After thinking about it, I wondered if it was her way of saying that she was warming up to us. I was fine with all of the above facts.

Spider-Man hopped from one wall to another, landing much closer to X-23 this time. "I hate you," he said, looking in her direction.

She spoke nothing, but only continued to smile.

"You're the one that insisted she went on the team," I said, speaking up for her.

I got a hold of my pistol. It had been holstered long enough to feel a little cold when I first touched the handle. After one quick check to ensure that I reloaded it, I held it next to my head, pointing towards the ceiling. "Come on. We better get to the roof."

I ran as best as I could for having a spike driven into my stomach just minutes ago. X-23 was right behind me; I could tell because her and Spider-Man's footsteps were quite a bit different from one another. Besides, shortly after, I heard him speak from the same spot.

"'Ooh, you're the one that insisted she went on the team,'" Spider-Man whined to himself, mocking my statement to him. I heard a web get slung from his wrist, then attached to the ceiling.

I heard him swing, and knew that the most improvised team I'd ever seen was right behind me.

-**MVC**-

**A/N:** This isn't the end. At least...not in theory. I have plans to make this a two-shot, but anyone who knows me would know that I have a very bad track record of saying things I'll never do. In fact, I haven't even started working on the second half yet; for now, maybe this ending was satisfying enough? This story took me well out of my comfort zone (where my electric rodents at?), so feel free to give me any and all thoughts on it!


	2. The Chase

**A/N:** Fashionably late, but part two! Of...three. I'll explain later. Enjoy!

**-MVC-**

Before long at all, I found myself retracing all of the steps that I had made. One floor, then another, all of them looking familiar to me as I entered them. We were running, but that wasn't the only reason I had a bit extra spring in my step. A part of me still couldn't believe that I had managed to unite this team together. X-23 was close behind me; to conserve his likely limited webbing, Spider-Man wasn't far behind her. I had fought both of them over the course of the night. Looking at it optimistically, that's a good thing. Because of it, I could personally vouch for their abilities. Looking at it more realistically, it was a waste of ammo, stamina, and time, but I digress.

Without even asking him, I gathered that Spider-Man was a local. He explained a few things about the Daily Bugle without even being prompted. I had to focus on running and avoiding furniture in the dark, but I kept an ear on what he was saying. He explained that we were in the "suite"; at least, that's how he worded it. These VIP rooms, as they were, apparently don't have as many people walking through them daily as I first thought. The only way up here is supposed to be a few elevators and key cards, even though me and the bug found our own ways in. I still didn't trust X-23 to answer too many questions, so I staved off curiosity about how she got in here and saved my opportunities for things more important.

At any rate, Spider-Man's tour at least answered why the cafeteria back there was a dead end.

As we climbed the set of stairs that led to the roof, I lost a bit of focus on the goal. My mind wavered. Wesker. I couldn't believe he was still alive...again. You'd think eating a rocket after falling into a volcano would do someone in. Wesker's the only person that could possibly be an exception to.

I wasn't granted much time alone with my thoughts. Soon I realized that I had gotten on the last step, which was the roof of the building itself. I was again given a rare chance to hear X-23's voice. "Is that it?"

It wasn't a very clear question, but luckily there weren't many things she could have been talking about. While there wasn't a helicopter to be seen, there was one to be heard. The distinct chime of chopper blades was pretty hard to miss. I was a bit surprised it had gotten here so fast, but I wasn't about to complain about it. "Yeah. Doesn't sound that far away. It should be here within a couple minutes."

When all three of us were on the rooftop, I turned around to face the team. It was ironic and frustrating that I was the one that knew the least about what we were getting ourselves into. We had a few minutes to do something about that. "Both of you saw Wesker," I stated, setting myself up for a question. "Was he alone?"

"Hard to say, officer," Spider-man quipped. He leaped; of course it was still dark outside, but I saw him fling himself towards the back of a billboard. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the fact that he was actually more comfortable stuck to a wall than standing on solid ground. Then again, it was entirely possible he just wanted to show off his talents. "He was the only one I saw, but like I said, he hopped in a helicopter and took off after. Who knows how many goons were in there waiting."

That wasn't helpful, but it was fair enough. From what I understand, Spider-Man saw Wesker for a matter of seconds. Not nearly enough time to learn about things like potential allies.

"No," the last teammate responded softly. I saw her brush some of her long hair behind an ear, but it was too dark to see if that was all she did. "He was not alone."

I was starting to see why Spider-Man wanted her on the team so badly. That harmless stunt she had pulled after we became a unit was a fluke; it was quite obvious X-23 didn't find much amusement in joking around. As far as I was concerned, when she spoke, it was law coming out. "Great," I muttered sarcastically. "Wesker couldn't care less about anyone but himself, but that doesn't mean he won't trick people into helping him anyway. Hope he doesn't have too much backup..."

I said the last sentence for a reason. I wanted X-23 to continue on without using up any of my questions. The bait, however, went completely untouched. I heard the smallest movement from her, as if she had folded her arms or something, and then silence. It would have to wait. I had to be thankful that I was at least given a heads up about trouble.

Within moments, the helicopter got too close to us to have much of a conversation. The noise its blades made was astounding, but nothing I wasn't used to. Rather than dropping all the way down to the roof, our BSAA friends decided for us that we weren't done climbing for the night. While the pilot kept the ride in neutral, a second person hurled a rope ladder down to us.

Despite it being so dark, I signaled for the other two to go on ahead of me. Spider-Man obliged first by hopping from his position on the gigantic advertisement straight to a few steps off the bottom rung. X-23 was soon behind him, then me.

We were given two gifts immediately when we got inside the copter. One was artificial light, something I hadn't had access to since the cafeteria incident. The second was some headsets. It certainly wasn't any less noisy inside of the thing, so these were essential if we didn't want to play charades all night.

It was hard to tell if this was the same helicopter that had dropped me off barely an hour ago. Just because it was as cramped and barren as the last one sadly didn't mean much. BSAA rides weren't known for being luxurious. I suppose it's better that they're known for being effective, anyway.

The co-pilot that had thrown the ladder down to us had undone his work by the time I got my headset active and on my head. These were built for short range, making them better for the situation than my regular, more compact headset. As he started making his way back to his comfortable seat, I told him, "We're going south."

A thumbs up, and he was off.

I sat down on one of the two benches that were in the back of the helicopter. They were on opposite sides; while I took one side, I saw X-23 taking the other. She was fiddling with her headset, which was cute in a way. It's too bad she probably wouldn't use it much.

Spider-Man was the only one of the three that didn't want the pleasure that even a hard seat can grant after a night like tonight. After the latch on the door got locked, there was a clean window that showed what I presumed to be a great view of the city. Spider-Man must have thought so, because he seemed pretty intent to stare at it. I noticed he'd already gotten his communication device on over his mask. These devices were never tested in case we ever teamed up with costumed super heroes, so I was curious how well it would work. "Thinking hard, Spider-Man?"

"Only about that ladder," he replied without turning to me. His voice seemed to change a bit more than mine did when going through a headset. I had to wonder if the mask had anything to do with that. "You know how awkward it is to climb a ladder after sticking to so many buildings? ...Well, I guess you wouldn't, but trust me, it is."

I shouldn't have been surprised something like that would be the first thing out of his mouth. He wasn't looking, so I let myself smirk a bit.

I wasn't smirking for long. It was easy to see X-23 didn't care much for our banter. Her hands were covering and rubbing her eyes; as always with women, I couldn't even take a guess at what was going through her mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Spider-Man had also taken notice of it. I was willing to admit that he was more daring than I was when he broached about it.

"X-23-isn't there any other name we can call you?"

Her elbows landed on her knees. She'd moved her hands away from her face, but now she was bowing her head. Between the angle I was at and her dangling hair, her expression was just as hard to read as it was before. There was a long pause before she answered, but we both waited patiently. "...Laura."

"Now we're getting somewhere," the costumed adult decided. "There's one question I've been dying to ask you the entire night, Laura. Chris took a blind guess off of a rough description that we're going after some A-list crook. Then you came along and identified him by name. And on top of that, you knew that he's got help? Am I just really out of the loop about this guy, or do you have a confession to make?"

The accusation startled me. Could X-2-Laura be so quiet because she's hiding something? That had never even occurred to me. Spider-Man being so stern also caught me off guard.

I guess he was thinking about more than that ladder after all.

She shifted her head to her left, but still kept looking toward the floor. With Laura, it was hard to tell if she was just gathering her words or actually refusing to answer. Something told me it wasn't the former, and Spider-Man must have thought so too.

"I'm not angry," he stated, probably as a form of apology. "It's just that I've been double-crossed before, and I tend to get suspicious of the quiet types. I want to trust you, especially since you know Wolverine. Before I can do that, I need to hear more of your story."

I'd been terrified before, but I reached the peak of adrenaline a few short seconds after Spider-Man finished talking. That's when Laura's claws extended straight from her skin. It wasn't even two seconds after that when a small stream of blood trickled in between her own fingers.

I gave a sub-conscious prayer that a fight wasn't about to break out. This small and unstable of a helicopter would make for the worst battlefield I'd ever seen. I habitually reached for my gun, but Spider-Man stopped me with a glance and a small wave of his hand. "No spider-sense."

That wasn't even English to me. I had to take the most comfort I could in the fact that he seemed completely unfazed by Laura's unpredicted action.

The headset picked up the feral growl that rumbled in her throat too well. "Wesker lied to me..."

I briefly thought again about her claws. It was possible she didn't have complete control over them; maybe it was an involuntary motion made when she became upset. If that was true, I had to be grateful she was only upset at Wesker.

"He told me that he could help me," Laura went on. She continued avoiding eye contact with either of us, maybe for our own safety. Her fists weren't so lucky. As she clenched them harder and harder, they kept turning all the more red. I could see it clearly even through the blood that leaked around her hands. "I thought he was one of the scientists who-"

She stopped. I noticed three things happen one right after the other; her shoulders jumped sporadically once, she made a congested sniffle, and her right-hand thumb and index finger moved up to her eyes. Those things made sense, especially after Spider-Man finished the hard sentence for her.

"...created you."

"I went with him into his helicopter," she went on. It hardly sounded at all like she was crying. If she really had been created in a laboratory, maybe she couldn't. "We landed on a roof top. He grabbed a half dozen weapons and jumped out. I followed him, then saw that he was dealing with Magneto."

"Magneto?" Spider-Man shouted. I flinched; my ear wasn't ready for that. "How did I not see him?"

I recovered and asked, "Who's Magneto?"

"The master of magnet..." Spider-Man gave a disgruntled huff. "Never mind, I'll tell you later. Then what happened?"

"Everything went red. I attacked in rage, but he stopped me and threw me off the building. When I...healed, I made my way to that building."

Spider-Man rubbed his chin. One usually does that to gesture thinking, but I doubted how useful it really was when a mask was covering the chin up. "...You tell good stories, Laura. You should read to kids in the library when you have some free time." Her claws retracted; that was good, but Spider-Man didn't even notice. He had already turned to face me. "Her tale checks out as far as I'm concerned. Now that I think about it, I might have seen a second person -Laura- get out of Wesker's chopper. I wasn't too sure what happened to them, but I guess being chucked off the building would be a good answer. Wesker apparently wasn't too upset by it. From my point of view, he took Maggie's briefcase and scatted."

"Wesker traded for a briefcase?" Laura inquired.

"Yeah. This Wesker guy either isn't too bright, or doesn't know his contacts very well." Spider-Man again took the time to explain the situation to me. I was glad, too, because I was so lost by this point. All I'd understood so far was that one of my teammates can stick to buildings, and the other can survive being thrown off them. "Magneto can manipulate metal. If whatever was in that briefcase has a gram of anything shiny in it, there's a good chance Magneto can get it back any time he wants."

That description concerned me for a number of reasons. Specifically, forty-two. That was the amount of metal ammunition I had left on me. "So will I have the chance to get better acquainted with this Magneto guy tonight?"

"I doubt it," Spider-Man said, once more tapping his chin. "He was just making a mutual trade with Wesker from the sounds of it. I don't see them teaming up too soon."

The most feminine one here again spoke up. I was starting to get used to her voice, which is something I never thought I'd say. "There were two others in the helicopter with Wesker, including a pilot. I don't know anything about them."

"Redfield."

That was an odd way to respond to Laura. It took me a second to realize that Spider-Man wasn't the one who said it. The two pilots used the same frequency the three of us were on. That meant eavesdropping was inevitable, but I was glad for it. Maybe they understood half of this and could explain it to me later. "What is it?"

"Radar's got a blip," the pilot went on. Both Laura and Spider-Man pressed the headset further into their ears to make sure they missed nothing. "It's a bird, and a suspicious one at that."

"Do birds eat spiders?" the arachnid wondered. "I always fell asleep during science class."

"Copy that," I replied, simultaneously giving Spider-Man the evil eye. "Don't let that thing get out of sight until we figure out if it's Wesker's or not."

Spider-Man started to slowly pace back and forth. "I wouldn't start locking any missiles on yet. Something doesn't seem right. I saw Wesker leave an hour ago. How did we catch up to him in five minutes?"

I don't know what he wants us to believe, but I could say with confidence that Spider-Man is sharper than he wants us to give him credit for. First figuring out how to get X-23 to talk, and then bringing up a perfectly valid point. If only guessing at Spider-Man's identity was my top priority right now. "You're right, it is odd...but maybe not unheard of. He could have found more people to barter with for all we know. Or what if he decided to start looking for X-" I said it. By the time I realized I said it, it was too late. "...Laura?"

We both glanced over at her. Her dead eyes were set off to the side. It honestly looked like she didn't even hear me. Maybe that was me just hoping for the best. It was more likely that she just took the slip of her laboratory name on the chin. Either way, that didn't stop Spider-Man from turning back to me. "Dude. Really? Anyway, I guess there's no way to know until we get closer," he finished.

And that we did. The next few minutes were spent in silence. Every so often, I glanced over at Laura. I couldn't decide if I should apologize or not. Any time I came close, I told myself that she originally wanted to be called X-23. Why should I apologize for calling somebody their own name?

It wasn't very important, and all too soon, became completely obsolete. One of the pilots again ringed in, this time sounding more panicked. "Redfield, they're trying to lock onto us!"

"I'd say that last question just got answered," Spider-Man chimed in.

I couldn't say I was as calm. "What? Shake it off, then!"

The ride wasn't very steady, and it was about to get worse. Evasive maneuvers meant rocking the boat all over the place. It was rough, but not nearly as bad as it would be if we were hit by anything. I clamped my fingers under the bench to help steady myself; Laura just snarled and tried not to bounce all around the place. Amusingly enough, even Spider-Man lost his balance enough to need to put a hand on the side of the copter.

"Like hell they're getting an easy hit on us," the pilot assured. "Redfield, we got one more problem."

"It gets _worse_?" Spider-Man wondered.

"What is it?" I demanded. I couldn't do very much with intel like that.

"Uh..."

It was hard to say whether he just wanted to sound arrogant, or if he genuinely ran out of time to explain. It didn't matter; what did was a sudden jerk downwards. I had a sinking feeling that wasn't a move made by either of the two up front. We sank, and we kept sinking rather steadily. Something had attached to us. Something really heavy.

Spider-Man reached for the handle to the door leading outside. I didn't even have time to stop him. With an annoyed-sounding, "You've got to be kidding me," he ripped the door open. I was too enthralled by what he was doing to realize that the steel lock was securely in place over the door. He'd broken it with his nearly bare hands by opening it.

Immediately, as expected, air started pouring straight into the helicopter. The wind was blinding and loud, but not loud enough. I heard something over it that sent a chill up my spine.

"Hulk SMASH spinning bird!"

I ran over to the open door, being extremely careful I didn't get sucked out the hatch. I gently leaned over, only to realize just how fast we were falling; at a rate like this, we'd hit the ground in less than ten seconds. Whether that was the worst thing at the present time or not was up for debate. When I looked down, it was pretty hard to miss a very familiar green giant looking straight back up at me. His hands were gripped tightly around the base of the copter. I could have sworn his eyes got a little redder when they met mine.

Spider-Man squatted close to the ground. He screamed as loud as he could. Our headsets were still on, but if he was somehow friends with that monster, any amount of ringing in my ear was worth it. "HULK! You have the wrong helicopter! Go get _that_ one!" he yelled, pointing in the direction of Wesker's helicopter.

Amazingly, the monster heard his command and understood it. His head shifted to the side, exactly where my partner was pointing. The Hulk's voice was as loud as a drum set, so he didn't need a headset for me to hear him. "...Oh. Sorry."

Without a second thought, Hulk let his own fingers slip from the metal bar, causing his massive form to drop back to the earth 150 feet down. Instantly, our helicopter regained control of itself. The pilots quickly put us back into the pursuit of Wesker.

I shook my head, wondering to myself if all that I had just seen really happened. "You're something else, Spider-Man."

"Actually, I prefer 'amazing.' Or even 'spectacular.' 'The Something Else Spider-Man' doesn't sound very catchy. All the same, though, thanks!"

Spider-Man put the door back in place. At least, he tried to. Somewhere in the process of snapping the lock, something else must have broke, because the door didn't go back on right. At least it still blocked out most of the wind, and since it had been sacrificed for a good cause, I decided not to give him any trouble about it.

Next to the helicopter, X-23 was the next one worse for wear. All of the wind had made her hair thrash about in all different directions. Now that it had settled down, about half of her locks ended up covering her face. She blew on a few strands, which worked for a second before they dropped back into place.

I chuckled, but just a little bit.

"Incredible," I heard one of the pilots say through the headset. "We're well within range of the bird. Definitely starting to look like Tricell. But whatever was just attacking us just made a jump from the earth and is now pounding on that thing like a blacksmith. The hell did you tell that thing, Redfield?"

My only wish was that I was able to see what was going on for myself. I'd pay good money to see Wesker get ripped in half by a monster that towers over him, so getting to see it done in the air and for free would be a dream come true. As it was, commentary was satisfactory enough. "Sounds like that doesn't matter right now. Not even Wesker's crazy enough to stay in the air with that thing all over him. One way or another, Wesker's literally going down. You guys should get ready to follow him."

"Gotcha."

I saw Spider-Man tap his foot on the ground three times in an impatient matter. He was probably thinking the same way I was. A part of me knew that he was going to do something about it, though. "Screw this," he stated and walked towards the broken door. "I'm too cheap for pay-per-view. This sounds like greater entertainment than bingo night."

"Wait, Spider-M-"

I sometimes really hate it when I'm right.

The door, again, was effortlessly heaved away from the hatch it was supposed to be covering. Just like before, the back of the helicopter was flooded with an unbalancing rush of wind. Spider-Man didn't even seem to notice and took the smallest of leaps outside. He didn't go far; he stuck almost instantly to the same pole that the Hulk had been grabbing just moments ago.

"...I just fixed my hair..."

I took a glance at X-23. If she had told the truth, the wind had made a liar out of her. Her two and a half foot-long hair waged war against gravity, and the result was Laura getting blinded by herself.

With the corner of my eye, I saw Spider-Man had crawled forward a baby step. "Sorry, Laur. But check out this view! Hey, I can see my house from-Whoa."

Curiosity was tough to beat. Besides, the door was already never going back in place, so I might as well take advantage of the situation. I got to the edge of the side and peeked around the corner.

It was dark out, so it was a little hard to see the blood-curling Tricell logo, or anything else about the other helicopter. Sight wasn't needed right now, though. The refreshing sound of complete destruction made up for it. Even over the sound of both birds, the screeching of metal being torn apart could be heard as clear as anything. After the Hulk tore off one specific piece, I saw sparks begin to soar out from Wesker's ride. I had to laugh when I heard Spider-Man remark, "Ooh. That looked valuable."

I was surprised when I felt something soft on my arm. I changed my sight from Wesker's demise for a moment to see the hair that Laura was having such trouble with. She'd come up to the door and stood next to me, also wanting to see what was happening.

The gruesome downfall of my worst enemy had unified my team. I had to smile at that.

It wasn't long at all before things happened just as I predicted them. Wesker's helicopter started on a surely unscheduled descent. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, it looked like he still had enough control of it to prevent a fatal crash. "Don't even let them out of your cross hairs," I reminded my own pilots.

That's when predictability flew out the window. Or the helicopter, as the case may be.

Unknown to me a moment ago, there was a reason the helicopter was losing control. Some figure inside the chopper -it was too dark to make out many details- stood over a hole that the Hulk had created. After just a moment, he shouted something. I could have sworn I heard something like "Skrull," but knew that some parts of that had to be lost to the wind.

When he was done with his incoherent battle cry, he took a flying leap out of the helicopter. My eyes widened as I wondered just how mad this guy was.

As he fell past him, the figure leeched on to the Hulk's back. The green giant tried shaking him off, but the other seemed rather attached.

He began pounding on the Hulk's hands, and I noticed something. The arm that he was reaching forward with was made entirely of stone. I caught myself before asking how that was possible. If I required a logical explanation for half the things that's happened tonight, I think I'd have a tougher time finding them than what it's worth.

The Hulk was inhumanly strong; I could vouch for that with personal experience. But even he couldn't hold on for long while being assaulted constantly by thrashing rock. His hold with one hand slipped, and then the other. Both friend and enemy plummeted to the earth way down below.

"HULK!" Spider-Man shouted. He still had his headset on, so I heard him clearly. Could Spider-Man really have a friend in that thing? I got the impression that the Hulk is one person who doesn't much care for buddies.

I wasn't sure if the bug was still watching the free fall or not. I'd already diverted my attention; when the Hulk dropped, a couple tons of weight was suddenly released from the helicopter. Without a pilot to stabilize it, Wesker's carrier began spinning out of control even worse than before. I could tell where it was headed, and I was glad for it. An empty rooftop. Far away from civilians, and plenty of room to fight.

The roof was lit up by two florescent lights, hidden behind glass covers that were each attached to a pole. I was glad to finally arrive somewhere that wasn't almost pitch black. With the lights' help, I watched as two figures jumped out of the sinking helicopter. Not even a second later, the thing crashed and exploded into flames upon impact. In my eyes, it was a beautiful sight.

One of those figures wore a leather coat. He was crouching on the rooftop, probably trying to get his heart rate under control. I had a confident feeling that the sight wasn't as beautiful in his eyes.

The helicopter brought us close to the roof without touching it. Spider-Man ripped the headset off of his face and shot it into our helicopter, then hopped off. He had some witty remark to say about close to everything; I had to imagine that his cold silence this time meant that his thoughts were on the Hulk's safety.

I motioned for X-23 to follow him, and after she took off her own headset, she did. I stayed behind to make one last call. "You two better get out of here," I radioed to the pilots. "Stay local. We'll call you when we're done."

"Copy that, Redfield. Go kick some ass."

I smirked. Once I discarded the bulkier headset, keeping my other one equipped and handy, I followed after my crew.

**-MVC-**

**A/N: **To be frank, I underestimated my ability to make chapters seemingly endless. Hovering somewhere around 15,000 words and still not done yet, I knew I had to divide that up somehow. And so, this one-shot that became a two-shot is now a three-shot. This chapter is much shorter than the ones surrounding it, but if you saw how long it was originally going to be, I think you'd thank me for it. Not enough action in this one, you say? Hang on...**  
**


	3. The Mission

**A/N:** Before it starts, I think it's worth pointing out that a new character is in this chapter, but I'm sadly very unfamiliar with him. Honestly, all that I know about him comes from Wikipedia. He seemed like (and turned out to be) a fun candidate, but if he's any bit OOC, I apologize. Anyway, please, enjoy!

**-MVC-**

In the corner of the rooftop was the flaming heap of trash that was once a helicopter. Located more in the center of it were two of its passengers, neither of which had fully picked themselves off the ground yet. I didn't recognize one of them; he wore a red coat, but no shirt underneath it. I saw machine guns and swords on his person, but neither were his defining feature. To me, that prize went to the snow white hair on top of his head. It didn't look bleached, so I chocked it down to messed up genes. I couldn't spend much time coming up with a solution to that.

Unlike him, I recognized the other person.

"Chris..." The poisonous tone that Wesker carried made me feel nostalgic. Nostalgic, and nauseous. As he spoke, he twisted his head around to glare at me. "What an unnecessary way to get my attention."

"Wesker..." I grumbled in reply. I whipped my handgun out and pointed it straight at him.

"So this is Wesker?" Spider-Man cut in. I had to guess that he was over the Hulk by now. "It's got to be said. I'm liking his haircut."

The worst teammate I'd ever had slowly got to his feet. He had been seconds away from dying in a horrifying crash; I didn't even see his legs shake. "You must be enjoying this."

I kept my pistol trained on him and let him talk. Trying to respond wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. Besides, I needed to be on high alert. I had no reason to believe he had stopped injecting himself with the T-Virus, which lets him move faster than I can blink. Combine that with being regretfully unknowledgeable about his "teammate," and a fight could literally break out in less than a second.

"Even I'm surprised at myself for letting it come to this," he went on, clenching his hand into a fist. "You see, my pilot...tended to follow his own orders. You can thank him for trying to shoot you down, and for this entire crash. I hardly urged him to jump out of the helicopter."

"You make people want to do that all by themselves," I snapped back. "Why are you here, Wesker?"

"Preparing," he scoffed. It was nearly nine at night, and he still insisted on wearing those damn sunglasses. I only paid attention to them because he moved a hand to push them farther up the bridge of his nose. "And some research. But neither of those things concern you. In fact, I find myself not caring much at all about you. However, X-23, my dear, you're quite a different story."

Her claws shot out from her knuckles almost before Wesker finished his last sentence. I heard them.

"I must apologize for the way things turned out earlier. I do recall advising you to stay in the helicopter...but, it's nothing either of us should be upset about. It's a shame I didn't have an opportunity to say that before you found...him."

I tightened the grip on my gun. I couldn't stand that guy's voice; the fact that he formed words only made it worse. "You're wasting time, Wesker! She already knows you lied t-"

A claw inches in front of my face stopped me. I shifted my eyes to see Laura was ready to defend herself; if I was Wesker, I'd be more scared of X-23's cold eyes than the pistol I was aiming at him. "Who do you think you are?" she scolded, her narrow eyes focused on Wesker. I sort of wished she would move her hand, and claw, away from me, but I wasn't about to make a request.

"I'm someone who was hoping to have a beautiful woman like yourself standing on my side of the rooftop...Laura."

"How do you know my name?"

It was against my better judgment, but I lowered my gun. I had to; I was too surprised by Laura. Her body was beginning to turn red, assumingly out of pure rage. Maybe a vein could be seen if I looked hard, but I wasn't daring enough to stare. I slowly put my focus back on Wesker.

"Hmph." The target took it upon himself to take a few steps to his side. His partner, the red coat guy, was starting to make his way up to his feet. Wesker kept his back turned to him. It was a hard choice deciding who to keep my gun in line with, but after shifting back and forth once, I decided on Wesker. "You were among the things I researched, my dear. You fascinated me. And now you can imagine how much it pains me to see you opposing me like this."

Laura released a scream of frustration. Of anger, of hate.

Before I could stop her, she tore off. Bolting in the direction of Wesker as fast as a ferocious predator. I couldn't believe how angry she could get, and how intense she was. After witnessing this, I felt like I only had to deal with a fraction of her ability back at the Daily Bugle. She seemed completely in control of herself back then; I couldn't help but worry that something would happen when her cool was lost.

"It was the way Wesker worded that," Spider-Man mused, his tone sounding almost like one of pity. "Laura probably doesn't like to hear her name and the word 'researched' said in the same breath."

I released the breath that I had been holding, reluctantly lowering my gun at the same time. Yet again, Spider-Man made an almost inarguable guess. I was worried about her. Did she know everything Wesker was capable of? The two attempted to exchange blows. I wasn't surprised to see Wesker nimbly dodging her claw strikes, but I was definitely relieved to see that Laura wasn't giving him an easy hit on her, either.

"Just as I predicted," Wesker bragged after catching one of Laura's wrists. When she attempted to attack with the other one, he caught that one too. "You see, my dear, I've spent much time this evening in a discussion with your friends. They told me all about you...how you tick. Some of them even did so before I needed to severely harm them."

That got the exact response Wesker probably wanted. She gave a beast-like roar. In the frame of mind she was in, I can't imagine it even occurred to her to ask which of her friends he had gotten to. Wesker tossed her to the floor, barely injuring her. I bet she didn't even notice. Judging by the way she hopped to her feet and lunged after him again, I think I would have won that bet.

What did Wesker gain by making X-23 angry?

I frowned. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't keep the gun aimed at Wesker. The risk of hitting Laura simply wasn't worth it. That didn't mean I was done with it. Wesker had a partner, and I thought it was about time we got acquainted. "Who are you, and what in the hell convinced you it was a good idea to take Wesker's side?"

"Name's Dante," he greeted with an aggravating amount of politeness. He saluted both Spider-Man and I with two fingers, and seemed completely neutral to the fact my handgun was aimed right at him. "I'm going out on a limb and saayying...you two know each other?"

I took a quick glance at Wesker, but didn't keep my concentration off Dante for long. "More or less."

Spider-Man walked one step closer to Dante. "Bud, you've had to piece together by now that you're working for the wrong guy."

"...Working?" Dante grabbed one of his machine guns. Instinct made me push down halfway on my trigger. I was almost frozen solid in confusion when he didn't point it at either of us, nor X-23 or Wesker. He used the barrel of the weapon to scratch an itch on the side of his head. For a short moment, the sadistic part of me was hoping the gun would accidentally fire. "It's a Sunday night and there's nothing to do in this dump. I came along for the ride."

"Nothing to do...in New York?" Spider-Man seemed genuinely puzzled. "Did you even bother reading any of those pamphlets they give out? They're free, you know?"

"Spider-Man!" I scolded. I couldn't hide that I was mad, and for a good reason; it sounded like there was a good chance this could become a four-on-one against Wesker, and the bug in a costume is still cracking jokes. "Dante, I can promise you as many helicopter rides as you'd like if we can turn our attention to Wesker!"

Dante gripped his teeth together and let out a sound like he was debating with himself about my offer. This was easily the closest I'd ever gotten to winning someone over with a short trip in a helicopter. Though, that brings up the point that I've never tried before. "Nyeh...Tempting, but no. The guy in black promised a strawberry sundae, and I'm holding out for that."

I couldn't counter-offer; I was prepared to throw in pizza. He didn't give me much of a chance before quickly fixing that machine gun on me.

"Chris!" Spider-man yelped. He reacted without hesitation, cart-wheeling in front of me and throwing up a shield made entirely of web just as Dante squeezed the trigger. The sound the shots made, speed they launched out at, and velocity they hit the shield with made me all too confident that this guy liked his rapid-fire. I couldn't say what his specific gun is; all I know is I'd rather not be hit by any of those bullets.

I stopped briefly to stare in amazement at Spider-Man's tactic. What did he use to create this stuff? It not only holds up his own weight, but can also keep back machine gun fire?

In any case, I was pretty happy that I was finally on this side of the wall-crawling human.

The offer of safety is one hard to pass up. I slid to get closer to Spider-Man, and more importantly, the web shield he was holding up. I could tell it wasn't easy for him to hold back a seemingly endless barrage of fire, which just made me grateful that I didn't have to do it. "Suppose you don't have a plan?"

"Do I _look like_ I'm thinking of a plan right now?" Spider-Man icily replied back. I couldn't say I didn't deserve it.

Dante raised his voice so it could be heard over the gunfire. "You can hide, but you can't-uh, wait, never mind."

All the time, he kept pumping bullets into Spider-Man's shield. I noticed that every few seconds, my partner squeezed his palm, reapplying layers of webbing to the shield. That was bad; at that rate, he would soon run out of web. Not only would that leave us without a shield, Spider-Man would lose his main weapon.

That's when I had a brainstorm. It couldn't have come at a more convenient time.

I reached for a case on my belt. Inside was an assortment of explosives, ranging from timed to sensor. Only a hand grenade was going to get us out of this problem. I've said that a lot over the years.

I grabbed it, then shut the container. I quickly pulled the pin out with my other hand before hurling it blindly over Spider-Man's shield. All I had to do was find the source of the gunfire, so sight wasn't necessary anyway.

Evidently, I found my target. Or maybe not; grenades had the tendency to make people back off even if they miss. Whichever one it was wasn't important. The gunfire stopped, and I wasn't about to let an opportunity go by. I spun out from behind the shield, pistol drawn and aimed. Dante was squatting on his knees, looking as if he had rolled to escape the explosion. No guns were pointed at me to worry about. Somehow, the smirk he wore was worse. "You had your chance. From now on, you're considered an accomplice to Wesker."

"Can you even believe it?" Dante wondered, apparently ignoring my threat. "I almost stayed home today."

I tend not to trust psychopaths after a line like that; besides, he couldn't say I didn't warn him. I squeezed the trigger once, and just to make sure, again. I recalled that I had forty bullets left. I needed to be careful against this guy. Wesker would need three times the supplies that this Dante needed.

My eyes shot open wide when I realized how Dante was countering my attack. He wasn't using superhuman reflexes to simply dodge, like I'd gotten so used to over the night. Instead, he grabbed a steel blade from his sheath. He must have had no more than half a second to swing the sword around and literally dice a bullet in half. The second one I had shot was pretty much doomed to the same fate.

Was I just foiled by Hollywood theatrics?

"I'm trickier than that," he taunted. Not even a bead of sweat was on his face.

I was more content with how the next part played out. He was so focused on me, he had forgotten about my arachnid partner. Spider-Man shot the sticky shield he had been using to defend the both of us with; it carried on, and after a brief assistance from the wind, nailed Dante just beneath the forehead. I had to wonder if Spider-Man was originally aiming for his mouth.

"All right," the bug stated, standing next to me. "Web shooters are reloaded. What did I miss?"

Dante rubbed the spot on his head that the weapon had nicked. He seemed irritated, but not angry enough to make any bad judgment calls. "Your boyfriend over there thinks I'm an idiot."

Spider-Man retaliated by calmly pointing a thumb at Wesker. "Hey, at least my boyfriend is prettier than yours."

I had mixed feelings about that remark, but decided against voicing any of them.

"Don't even go there, bug!" Dante cried, snarling. That irritation/anger line looked like it was about to be crossed soon. He started a dash for Spider-Man, sword in hand.

"For the first and last time, it's A-RACH-NID. You learn this stuff in third grade, people!"

I rolled to the side as this guy -a mercenary of some sort, I could only imagine- made a swing with his sword. He brought it around widely, clearly aiming for Spider-Man, but with me conveniently being in the way. Something tells me he wouldn't have minded much if he got me instead.

Much to my appreciation, he didn't seem too upset that he missed me, either. As expected, Spider-Man proved to be an impossible target and jumped in the opposite direction of me. The brawl between those two started, and I realized I had the luxury of no one caring about me.

I'd managed to avoid firing when one of my teammates was fighting with someone else all through the night so far, but that was about to end. Dante was completely distracted, and I had faith Spider-Man wouldn't let himself get shot. I lifted up my pistol and took careful aim.

It didn't help anything that the both of them kept bouncing around. At the same time, I wasn't in a position to complain. Any orders to Spider-Man would just remind Dante that I was here, and the idea would be ruined anyway.

I felt confident in my shot. Just as I was making a few last second, fraction-of-an-inch changes to my aim, I was coldly reminded that I wasn't invisible.

At first, I thought that a truck had hit me from behind. I was pushed to the ground, destroying my aim and only barely managing to avoid misfiring a bullet. The pain I felt from the contact was instantly put out of my mind; I used my strength instead to look up at the object that had hit me, then rolled off of me.

That's when I realized that the truck had notable curves.

X-23 had her body facing the roof we were on. Her claws remained extended, but I could tell even from here that she was in more pain than she bargained for. She was having trouble just putting an arm underneath her to balance her on the way up. I spun around from my own face-plant and on to my back. The new position gave me a clear view of Wesker casually making his way up to the both of us.

Damn it.

"I must say, Chris, I'm starting to notice a pattern with you."

Again, I shot two bullets in a row. Even I'm not sure why I did it, aside from forcing him to pause for a second in order to dodge. When the second one harmlessly buzzed by his ear, he continued on like it had never happened.

"You seem to find female partners that throw themselves at me in a blind attempt to leave a scratch." He stopped. And smirked. And fixed the position of those _damn_ sunglasses. "I'm three for three."

I climbed to my feet. I was vulnerable the entire time, but I didn't even think about that. Wesker was far too cocky to attack while I was defenseless. It wasn't honor. It was his sick fantasy of getting some perfect victory over me.

I was quiet for a moment. I wanted to rage on Wesker, only because he was right. Too many people have been hurt or worse in my never ending missions to stop him. Getting reminded of them only made me want to put my gun next to Wesker's head and never stop shooting. But I didn't let myself do that. I couldn't. Not before I finished this mission. "Spider-Man," I said without ever taking my eyes off Wesker. My back was to him, so I wasn't sure if he even had the ability to pay attention to me. "Protect Laura until she heals herself."

"...Uh. Right."

At least I got a response. That was good enough for me.

Wesker tipped his head slightly in an aggravating mixture of confusion and amusement. "Finally going to face me one-on-one, are you, Chris?"

"We aren't rivals in some tournament, Wesker," I cursed, "You're a threat to the entire world. I'm going to take you down by whatever means necessary."

"Hrm...That was almost a yes."

I wasn't sure if he was disappointed or actually satisfied with my answer. Like I cared. Charging at Wesker wouldn't be enough; I needed him to come to me. I suspected that three of my handgun bullets being fired at him would be enticing enough.

The good news was, it worked. The bad news was...it worked.

He dodged first to the left; within less than a second, he was a foot closer to me and dodged right. He ducked under the last one, then paused only to smile at me. Before I -or any other human- could react, he was standing inches in front of me. He grappled the collar of my shirt and lifted me off the ground with a single hand. His grip was as remarkable as I recalled it being.

"Understand something, Chris. I'm getting tired of our constant encounters."

"And you think I'm not?" I roared back.

I yanked my machete out of its holster on my chest with the opposite hand I was still holding the gun with. I'd gotten a good enough grip on it quickly, allowing me to make a jab with it into Wesker's drugged-up gut.

Wesker didn't bother pretending he looked surprise by my tactic. He held his other hand in front of my target, forcing a collision between my blade and his glove. I felt the knife slice easily through the leather and dig into his hand, but yet, I'm the one who grunted in annoyance. Whatever Wesker injected himself with, it seemed to make him almost totally in control of his pain. Getting his hand stabbed would do next to nothing against him.

After the contact was made, he glanced back up at me, like he was silently asking if I actually thought that would work. He didn't wait long for an answer. Almost immediately, he spun around and hurled me to the ground.

The pain of the collision was bad, but there was an advantage to our positions. When I rolled myself to a stop, I realized that I could see past Wesker and at the other battle still raging. It almost looked like Spider-Man didn't care to go on the offense; he kept using his unrivaled mobility to slip in between all of Dante's attack attempts. More importantly, somewhere he had found the time to wrap X-23 fully in webbing. That seemed like another smart move by Spider-Man. However Laura's "healing factor" worked, it likely involved rest. With nothing getting in, she could concentrate fully on that.

Knowing Wesker, he probably figured out that I was looking past him. If he did, he didn't bother mentioning it. "How did you find Laura?"

When he said that, I came to the realization that I hadn't been aiming the gun at him. I quickly corrected that mistake. Even if I knew it would almost never connect, a bullet forced him to stop for a second and evade. One of these times, that single second would be crucial in taking him down. "After being abandoned by you, she found me," I explained, rising up to my feet. "Why are you so interested in her?"

"Weapon X...Hmhmhm hahaha..."

I always hated that laugh. Cocky, arrogant, but not loud. I fired a bullet at him, almost by instinct.

I didn't even have the time to recover from the recoil of the shot before Wesker made his move. He effortlessly moved out of the way, then seemed to appear right in front of me. A Magnum revolver was pointed at my head, while my pistol was held to his neck. We were in a nerve-wracking stalemate. At least, that's the optimistic way of looking at it; even at this distance, Wesker could probably squirm around a bullet.

"Imagine," he went on, continuing to be unaffected by our fight at all, "Being able to infuse bodies with adamantium. Laura...or, is it X-23? is my first step in attaining a power like that."

That answer was startling. It wasn't always the most intelligent idea to ask questions with a gun in my face, but I had a feeling Wesker wasn't even thinking of pulling the trigger. Not yet. "What happened to Uroboros, or the T-Virus, or whatever the hell it is you're pumping into your body these days?"

"You once again fail to understand what's at hand, Chris. I will perform the Weapon X project on those I find that might have use to me. I have no personal use for Weapon X. Not with Uroboros. With an army, I could secure my place as a god of-"

He stopped. The last problem Wesker had was losing his train of thought during a psychopathic rant, so I wasn't sure what the problem was.

I peeked over his shoulder and got an answer.

I jumped off to the side, landing on the ground, but quickly looking back. There was a strand of webbing attached to the backside of Wesker's trench coat, but it was quickly losing its firmness. Within the matter of moments, the one and only Spider-Man made a grand appearance by rocketing his foot into Wesker's back. He'd yanked himself with such strength that he had plenty of momentum to carry the attack through.

"Ooh, right in the back!" the arachnid said while virtually back flipping off of Wesker. "But...that's how you like it, isn't it?"

The act was impressive, I had to admit, and potentially saved my life. I looked over at Dante to see him struggling with a few pieces of web wrapped around his ankles. It wouldn't take him long to get out of that, and Spider-Man knew it. He turned to me with a thumbs up. "He's all yours."

After that, he leapt back to his own devices.

Spider-Man's words confused me at first, but then I looked at Wesker. I witnessed a sight that was one of the rarest experiences I would have: Wesker, vulnerable. From my point of view, a kick like Spider-Man's would have easily shattered a spine; Wesker getting the wind knocked out of him was about as close to that as I was going to get. He had staggered forward before finally dropping to a knee.

I'll be damned if this wasn't the best opportunity I've had at Wesker all night.

I rolled in front of Wesker, instantly re-orientating myself and nailing him under the chin with an uppercut. This time, I was the one to grab him by the collar. I lifted us both back to our feet, then gave him the gift of a left hook to his jaw. One punch, then two; one for both sets of his ribs. I clutched the backside of his head, ignoring the hair gel that slipped onto my unprotected fingers. I forcefully pushed down, simultaneously bringing my leg up. His skull had a painful meeting with my right knee.

That move in particular was the most gratifying for me. Just as my knee made contact, I heard a _crack._ Those damn sunglasses of his fell to the ground, nose piece broken, lenses shattered.

I smirked at that, then finished my combination with a strong left kick to his stomach.

He stumbled backwards until he inevitably tripped over his own feet, hitting the ground and rolling a couple times. He ended up on his front side, muttering something or other to himself.

I came close to asking him how annoying the ringing in his ears was, but I decided not to. Wesker wasn't about to turn himself in after a few blows, so I didn't feel like I had a reason to become overconfident. Besides, I think I'd rather leave the wisecracks to Spider-Man.

Wesker climbed onto a knee. His body was facing to the left, but his focus didn't waver from me for a second. His demonic red eyes tried to intimidate me, but it didn't work. He was actually less frightening to me once those sunglasses were off. "**Chris!**" he hollered, a little bit more than slightly agitated. It could have been for the string of blows I'd dealt him, but I couldn't help but feel like he was more pissed off over his glasses. "I always thought you were smarter than to make me angry!"

"You shouldn't assume things, Wesker," I replied, feeling a little snarky.

He didn't appreciate the comment as much as I was hoping for. He again tapped into his inhuman speed and charged up to me.

My gun was pulled, and Wesker was apparently sick of that. He rammed my arms off to the side using one of his own. The disarming tactic was so swift and hard, my hands involuntarily lost the grip on the pistol. I watched as it bounced on the ground, constantly rolling over itself, until finally it slipped off the edge of the roof. My first thought was that the last thing a New Yorker needs is a gun literally dropping into his hands, but I had different problems at the moment.

Wesker took advantage of my inconvenient position and shoved his hand, which was shaped into an open palm, into my own stomach. He'd accidentally found the wound that X-23 had caused earlier tonight with her foot spike. That didn't make the blow any softer.

I tried backing away until I could regain my composure, but that didn't go over so well either. Wesker followed me back. He crouched down, stuck his leg out, and spun around, effectively tripping me. He didn't let me hit the ground before he brought his other leg up and kicked me into the corner of our battlefield.

Our really small battlefield.

I shook my head, reminding myself it was critical to stay alert. I wanted to get up, but Wesker was already towering over me. This was starting to look bad.

"Rest, Chris," Wesker said, moving his arm. I realized he was making a slow movement towards his Magnum. "knowing this: you never stood a chance."

If I wanted to live, time wasn't on my side. Acting fast, I did all I could think of. I reached for the dummy stick.

As soon as Wesker saw me moving for something, he hastened his own movement. For once, I was proud to say I was faster than Wesker. I jammed the electric rod's switch to on, then swept across the ground with it. Just the tip of it managed to nick Wesker's shoe, but it was plenty enough. Volts of electricity charged through his body, giving me a beautiful opportunity.

I stood up and set the dummy stick away while I was doing it. It had done its job, and it did it perfectly. Wesker was still dazed from getting fried. I took the chance I had to twist his wrist until he unwillingly gave his Magnum gun to me, then sent him off with another forceful kick. I was starting to get tired, and it showed in the strength of my attack. I could only hope this entire fight was coming to an end.

Magnums weren't my personal preference. They were big and heavy. They couldn't hold as many bullets as handguns could, and they took longer to reload. I'm not surprised Wesker would sacrifice all of that for the ability to shoot through reinforced steel. "Aren't you done yet, Wesker?"

He recovered from my kick and seemed indifferent that his own gun was being pointed at him. "Are you enjoying yourself, Chris? Do you think you're moments away from winning?" He sounded calm. I knew Wesker. It wasn't going to last. And it didn't. "You would be wrong!" he shouted, almost definitely catching the attention of Spider-Man and Dante. "I am a god! No matter who you think you are, you of all people cannot defeat a god!"

My nostrils flared a bit. They do that when I'm mad. "That's where you're messed up, Wesker. You're the only person in the world that thinks you're a god. A few superpowers and a gigantic ego don't make you a god."

"True fact," Spider-Man chimed in. His battle with Dante had apparently quieted for a moment. "Just ask Doctor Doom."

"Shut it," his opponent warned, taking another slice at him with a sword.

As refreshing as it was, the break from Wesker was over. He clenched his gloved hand into a fist. I noticed it was the same one I had cut into earlier. "My only regret is I can't prove you wrong. You're the only obstacle standing in my way. You won't be alive long enough to see my rule. Die, Chris!"

He bolted forward, and for the second time, prioritized and got me away from the gun. Unlike before, he must have wanted his gun back; for now, he elbowed my wrists, forcing me to drop it straight down. It hit the rooftop at what must have been a perfect angle. The force of the drop pressured the trigger enough to fire. What sounded like an earth-shattering blast came from one of the deadliest weapons mankind's ever patented. Wesker and I were in close-quarters, and the bullet fired into the air between us. It was unbelievable luck that the shot missed us both by inches, but it was difficult enough to keep calm after such an unexpected sound.

For me. Wesker on the other hand didn't seem to have much of a problem with it. He wasn't smiling at the drop of sweat that ran down the side of my face. The cockiness was long gone. His blood-strained eyes showed that he wanted me dead.

He swung his arm in an attempt to hit me with a hook, but I managed to block it. I should have gotten some medal for it; Wesker was moving at his super speed, so I felt proud I had seen the attack coming in time.

After that, my pride went in the back seat.

He hit me once in the shoulder, then in the thigh. The onslaught was coming so rapidly, I could barely find the time to figure out what I was getting hit with. He made a precise chop at my wrist that sent it into incredible pain. I didn't think it was broken, but it was unlikely it would be of much use for the remainder of this fight. After a blow to the side of my face, he paid me back for that uppercut I had given him earlier.

I fell backwards, to the ground. The darkness was so tempting. I could escape from the pain, and the problems would almost just go away, even if only for a few hours.

Except they wouldn't. If no one else took down Wesker, he would get to do all the crap he's preached about. Losing my will now meant that I was happy and the world went to hell. That wasn't about to happen.

I heard a sound. It certainly wasn't angels singing. It sounded more like a sword was getting ripped out of a sheath. All I could think of was Dante, and as far as I knew, he was already attacking with his sword. My mind was too dazed to think of other alternatives.

"It's been an interesting run, hasn't it, Chris?" Wesker asked, I assumed rhetorically, while executing a stomp on my body. "All those years of you getting in my way have come down to this. The result that the both of us expected."

I grunted, clenching my teeth in the hopes that he wouldn't hear it. I was already in pain, and his foot digging into my stomach wasn't helping me to feel better.

"Now let me ask you a question. By definition, wouldn't you agree that this match was decided...by a god?" He chuckled; his arrogance was returning to him. I just wished I could do a damn thing about it.

He made an uninterrupted reach for my throat. His hands clamped down. The darkness from before was starting to become less of an option and more mandatory. "Never again will you stop me fro-"

For the second time, he stopped mid-sentence. His grasp loosened until my neck was freed. My head bounced against the roof, but it was better than being strangled to death.

Then I realized something was dripping on me. I looked on my stomach to see a small pool of blood there; that would have been horrifying, but I was pretty sure it wasn't mine. Then I looked up.

Wesker's expression said that he was trying to process pain. His eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open. I looked down at Wesker's torso, and my eyes followed his example.

Impaled. Two razor-sharp claws were inserted into Wesker's back and, like a magic trick gone wrong, came out the other side. They seemed to be shoved in either side of his spine; not even an inch in either direction, and not even Wesker's body could have dealt with that. That didn't happen, though. X-23 was standing behind him, and she seemed perfectly content where she was.

I looked to where Laura had been. The silk cocoon was in tatters. The sound I heard just moments ago must have been Laura chopping through it.

My teammate had saved my life.

X-23 leaned in toward Wesker's ear and whispered, "Stop breathing." After, she drove her remaining pair of claws into Wesker's back, this time closer to his heart. I was pretty sure that in spite of her suggestion, she had avoided hitting any vital organs. What I wasn't sure on was whether that was on purpose or not.

She turned around, bringing Wesker with her. When they were facing the opposite direction, she lifted her leg up and kicked him off of her spikes. As she watched him crumple to the ground, she brought her hands down; her claws were drenched in blood. Once she got a satisfactory amount of amusement from that, she turned back around to me.

She lifted her hand up and gently set some hair behind her ear, all the while looking at me oddly. "...Are you...okay?"

If it wouldn't have been so painful to do so, I would have laughed. She'd probably never had a teammate to care about before. The result was that question asked as awkwardly as it was. "I've been worse...Sorta," I responded, trying to sound in less pain than I was. Wesker's multiple hits had gotten to me pretty badly, but at least I was able to sit up on my own.

Laura nodded, retracted one set of her claws, then offered that hand to me. I nodded and accepted it. With equal parts effort between the both of us, we managed to get me to my feet.

We started looking at Wesker, but his only "teammate" caught our attention first. "Hey...You guys aren't so bad."

"A compliment? From _you_?" Spider-Man asked dramatically. "I didn't know you were capable of such a feat!"

"Laugh it up," Dante countered, putting his weapon back into its holder. "Just remember that anything you say can and will be used to make fun of those tights."

Spider-Man set his hands on his hips. He was, apparently, always ready and willing for a good bantering session. "Tights are where it's at. Think about it. The word 'tight' is right in there."

Everyone's attention shifted near instantaneously. Wesker crawled back into a standing position. It was slow and shaky, and honestly, pathetic. His stance remained hunched over for a few moments before he was able to stand up straight. Blood was still pouring out his four different wounds, no doubt staining his leather beyond repair.

Laura's retracted claw launched itself outward.

"Chris...**CHRIISS**!" he shouted into the sky for the greater part of New York City to hear. "Why?" he spoke through grinding teeth. "Why can't I beat you? Why won't you die?"

"Save it, Wesker." After seeing how much pain Wesker was in, suddenly, my own didn't feel so bad. If nothing else, the relief helped me stay in a relaxed pose. "You're done."

"No. I'll never admit defeat to you." He made a shaky reach for an inside pocket of his coat. "I knew I would encounter you sooner or later. I knew how likely it was you would run into X-23 since you were both looking so hard for me. That's why I came prepared."

I could only imagine what Wesker was about to pull out of his pocket. That guy found a way to make just about anything into a weapon. I had to wonder why he made the connection with Laura, though.

Freed from the confines of his coat, his hand was now clearly holding a vile. I couldn't tell what was in it; in fact, it looked like nothing was. It was a clear tube no bigger than his palm. I couldn't say I felt threatened, but Laura must not have felt the same. I heard an audible gasp from her, followed by a step backwards. Two very unusual things coming from her.

"Laura, what is it?" I asked, looking back and forth between her and the bottle. "What's in that thing?"

I got a response. Sadly, it wasn't from her, and it wasn't even an answer to my question. "So long, Chris! I only regret I couldn't do this myself!"

With hesitation only because his body was still recovering from X-23's impaling, Wesker threw the vile onto the ground. It smashed into countless pieces, at the same time releasing a substance. When whatever was inside came into contact with air, it turned from transparent to a faint white color. A ball of white mist hovered above where the vile had been, though it slowly started to spread through-out the entire rooftop.

"A cloud?" I heard Dante ask. He seemed to have lost any amount of loyalty to Wesker that he might have had. It made me realize that Dante had tied Spider-Man up the entire night just so he wouldn't get himself bored, but at least it was over. "You're attacking them with a cloud, Boss? Seriously?"

Through the odd gas, I caught Wesker's red eyes glaring at me. He was waiting for that moment. The eye contact. He gave a snarl, and before I could even lift my arm up, he ran to the edge of the rooftop at lightning speed. He took an almost fearless bound off of it in order to jump over to a different rooftop.

"He's not getting away!" I howled in anger. No way, no chance. After all of this, Wesker wasn't about to make an escape just because he was losing. All that would accomplish is forcing him into hiding for a few weeks until he recovers, then he'd be right back at it.

That son of a bitch wasn't getting away.

I brought my hand up and just hit the button on my headset when I was pushed. Not hard enough to fall over, but enough to get me to stumble to the side a few steps. It disturbed my concentration enough to lighten up on the button after having not said a word.

There was only one person close enough to have done that, and she got my attention without a problem. I stared at her in a mix of confusion and contempt. Her hair was covering her eyes, but that didn't make a difference to me. "Laura, what are you doing?"

"...Get away from me..."

I rose my eyebrow in puzzlement. A look at Spider-Man didn't yield any results, either.

Soon, Laura acted on her own. She began dashing forward, toward the other two. Dante specifically. Before he could spit out more than "Uh," and "Um," she began shoving him. I noticed he was making no effort to defend himself. Could it possibly be from guilt for attacking us? Whatever made him do it, he was pushed harder than I was. Actually, quite a bit harder.

"This is why I'm happily single-Whoa!"

Dante ran out of room to be pushed. When his first foot lost ground to stand on, his second one wasn't far behind. X-23 shoved him off the roof of the building, much to an alarmed Spider-Man's dismay.

"Laura! Wh-what-?"

He was drowned out by Laura. She collapsed to her knees in the corner of the building, yelling, "Everyone needs to **get away from me**!"

The white mist was beginning to thicken. It laid an uncomforting blanket over the roof's top, blocking the view of my own feet.

"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" Spider-Man said in response. He began speed walking in my direction while never fully taking his eyes away from Laura.

"What is going on?" I asked, aggravated, once Spider-Man was close enough to talk to in a more regular voice. "We don't have time for this!"

"Clear your planner..." he warned vaguely.

I should have expected the sarcastic reply. In my defense, I was more used to leading teams a little more organized than this one. "There's no time for games, Spider-Man," I snapped. "In case you didn't notice, Wesker just-"

"I saw what Wesker did." He was interrupted briefly by a scream from Laura. It was an unsettling cry of agony. I watched as Spider-Man's mask watched X-23 without any particular emotion on its features. "I know that guy bullied you on the playground or whatever, but you of all people should know better than to leave a teammate suffering, cop-boy. If you're that obsessed over blondie, go find him. However it is you plan on doing that. I'll figure this out myself."

I was letting myself be lectured by a grown man in a Halloween costume. That wasn't the highest point of my day, but it was hard to find a way to argue with him. I don't leave teammates behind...even if that means Wesker gets his way for now. "...All right," I finally stated. "I'll root out Wesker later. You make convincing points, Spider-Man."

"Heh. You should have seen me on the debate team."

Spider-Man knelt down on one knee, and to my amazement, rolled up his mask. Well, halfway, at least. He was Caucasian, and rather pale at that. Whoever he was behind that mask must not make it out into the sun very much.

When his nose was unveiled, he leaned forward, closer to the ground, and sniffed in. I knew he was trying to figure out what the homemade fog was. I had my doubts, but for now, I kept them to myself.

He talked; I noticed he didn't do it before lowering his mask again completely. "I was afraid of this..."

Bad news. Just what I needed to hear.

Spider-Man stood back up for the rest of the explanation. "We've already established Laura was created in a lab." His tone was kept low, for obvious reasons. We were both looking at Laura, who was now twitching with her hands on her head, while he went on. "And it's pretty clear to me that they must have somehow used DNA from a friend of mine named Wolverine. As you might be able to guess, he's about as close to an animal as a human can get."

"And?" I prodded.

I saw X-23 stop quivering. Her hands dropped to her sides, and she even used them to start standing up.

"I'm going out on a limb and saying they made a small error with that DNA somewhere. You know how wild animals attack when they're provoked?"

She turned around very slowly. Her fists were red from being held together so hard. She hadn't put much effort into putting her claws away, either.

"Consider whatever chemical is in this gas...provoking her."

X-23 allowed me to gain access into her eyes. I wish she hadn't. We stood on completely opposite sides of the roof from each other, and I still saw all the details in her eyes. They looked about as red as Wesker's. Not only that, but she wanted something. Something I didn't feel like giving her at the moment.

Blood.

"S-so-?" I stuttered.

"Yeah..." Spider-man somehow managed to feign calmness. I knew it wasn't real; how could it be? "We're probably dead."

That wasn't helpful. I snorted angrily, then reached for my gun. There was a small problem in doing that. My gun had flown off the side of the building. With my luck, it was probably assisting in a bank robbery right now. With that demon inside of Laura staring at me, it was difficult to even think about what other options I had. The knife and electric rod were close range, which was probably the very last place I wanted to be with X-23 right now. I remembered the grenades, but suddenly grew reluctant. I doubted Laura could heal herself if she was blown into a hundred different pieces.

X-23 tucked her head in and sprung toward me. I was out of time.

Even after making that deduction, Spider-Man seemed surprised by her threatening movement. "Uhh...So about that plan you were telling me about!" he stammered, "What was it again?"

**-MVC-**

**A/N:** ...Ah, ha. I'm terrible. I swear that I didn't mean to drag this on for yet another chapter, but I noticed that this would be a fitting place to stop, and...  
Another reason is because I thought it might be a good idea to explain what just happened before we go any farther, since I don't think many people are familiar with Laura. Though I may have twisted it a bit to suit the story, Wesker abused what's known as X-23's trigger scent. Basically, if she gets a whiff of the trigger scent, she loses all sense of self-control and goes on a murder spree. Wesker strikes me as someone who would happily use that to his advantage.

No more games. This time, I can _promise_ you that the next chapter will be the last. In the meantime, feel free to review and tell me how I'm doing!


	4. The Rescue

**A/N: **The finale. Please enjoy it!

**-MVC-**

My eyes narrowed. X-23 was like a cannonball; she flew fast, and I really didn't want to be caught by her.

I executed another rolling dodge to get out of the way. I reluctantly found out that the difficulty from my last fight with her had been ramped up to eleven. By the time I was done rolling, I already had another pair of claws soaring at my neck. I just barely managed to catch her wrist with both hands. My own wrist, the one Wesker had gotten to, hated the idea, but as much pain as it was giving me, those claws would be a lot worse.

I heard another sharp sound and cringed. The only claws she had left to apply were the ones in her feet. Thanks to my current situation and the ever-thickening fog, I couldn't even see where her feet were.

Luckily, I had someone watching out for me. Spider-Man must have caught the reflection of it or something, because he reacted by launching a string of web. The spike hit me in the leg, but I could tell it was wrapped inside of webbing. It hardly felt like a poke, much less cause any pain.

X-23 -I wasn't about to call her Laura when she was like this- became startled by the web for the brief amount of time I needed. I called on my strength reserves and got to throw her to the ground beside me because of it. While she was falling down, she put her other hand forward and made a long pair of scratches straight down my arm.

The pain was bad, but this situation was still worse.

Spider-Man liked the idea of catching people on their backside with that webbing of his. He made a claim to X-23's back, spun around 270 degrees with her along for the ride, then smashed her body into the ground with the momentum he had built up. It had to hurt, and on top of that, it gave me a chance to get to my feet.

As I did that, Spider-Man talked. He used a serious voice, which always made me nervous. "Chris...We have to do something. Could you imagine if she got loose? We're in the Big Apple. She could single-handedly murder one-eighth of the country's population tonight."

I figured that had to be some kind of exaggeration, but I knew to some extent, he was right. This city would be soaked in blood within hours if we didn't find a way to calm X-23 down.

My partner gave a hefty sigh. "I'm going to hate myself in a few seconds for saying this, but...I'll distract her." As if on cue, she began rising up from being thrown as soon as he said that. He seemed to have been expecting that, since he didn't mention it. "We might need some help for this one. You have two guys circling above us right now. Please tell me they can do something."

Even though he made a request, he didn't wait for me to grant it. He made a dynamic leap to face X-23 one-on-one. To ensure she would go after him, Spider-Man launched a quick blot of webbing at her eyes. Unsurprisingly, it worked well enough.

I looked into the sky. The bug was right; I'd actually forgotten about assistance from above. The helicopter itself wasn't in sight, but I told those two to stay local, and they listened. I could still hear the chopper's blades coming from somewhere. I ran through a mental checklist of what they might be able to do for us. They weren't trained in hand-to-hand combat any better than I was, I knew that for a fact. Throwing them up against X-23 would be sending sheep to the slaughter. However, there remained the fact that the helicopter itself was far from defenseless. It wasn't an attack copter by any means, but it had a toy or two on it.

"You guys up there?" I asked innocently enough after pressing in the button on my headset.

"Itching for orders, Redfield."

I mimicked Spider-Man's sigh as I dropped my vision back down to the fight. Spider-Man landed a few punches, but was eventually ducked over and hit with a spike-powered roundhouse kick. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but forget Wesker. There's a way more immediate threat here."

"Something worse than him?"

"Worse, no. More immediate, yeah. Come back down here. And get the DragonNet ready."

The DragonNet. Probably my least favorite weapon. It was one of the most painful, drawn-out, sadistic torture devices I'd ever seen. Human, animal, science experiment, or whatever combination of the three X-23 was, she didn't deserve this. Nothing that breathed air did.

"Understood. We'll be there in thirty."

I really hoped that meant thirty seconds.

Spider-Man connected two strands of web to either one of X-23's ankles. He pulled off an acrobatic slide right in between her legs, tripping her with a disgusting amount of style. "Please tell me you aren't enjoying this, Spider-Man."

"...A little!" he admitted. He clicked both wrists together which helped him form a web ball. The unique projectile exploded when it connected with X-23, ensnaring her to the building.

The Spider-Man started to make his way over to me. "So what's the word from above?"

I would have answered, but I saw something he couldn't have with his back turned. X-23 had already shredded her encasing and was bolting towards him, all while remaining terrifyingly stealthy. "Spider-Man!"

It was no use. By the time he heard me, X-23 had jumped. There was no diving attack this time; that wasn't what she wanted. She'd timed her hop so well as to land squarely on Spider-Man's shoulders, then bring both of her legs up to strangle his neck. Likely stunned by the sudden weight, he wasn't able to do much about it.

I was familiar with things that wanted to kill me latching on to my shoulders, so I shared his pain in a way. That wouldn't comfort him much if he knew that X-23 raised both of her hands up, ready to dig about six inches into his shoulder bones and muscle. "No!" I shouted, knowing too damn well Spider-Man would be a few short slices away from death if that connected.

I charged forward without any weapon aside from my own arms. I got there just as X-23 began bringing her claws downward; I got there, but I didn't stop. I tackled Spider-Man, effectively making X-23 lose her balance and fall off. That's the second time in the past three minutes she was less than a second away from mortally wounding someone. Namely us.

Through all of the action, a sudden rush of relief came. I realized that the helicopter was sitting in the air about nine feet above the top of the building. The sound of the blades made hearing somewhat difficult, and the wind made my eyes water, but they were such small prices to pay for the concept of backup.

In the back of the helicopter, where the three of us had been resting just earlier tonight, one of the co-pilots was kneeling. He was facing us, looking through the open door that Spider-Man had kindly created. In both of his hands was a jungle green bazooka-like weapon. The DragonNet, or DN. They got here at the perfect time, since both of us were separated from X-23 for a moment.

The launcher's voice came over my headset. "DragonNet firing. 3-2-1!" he counted down rapidly.

I came so close to ringing in on my own headset. Telling him not to fire.

So close.

The DragonNet fired straight at X-23. Out from it came a net. The wire was thick and colored black, so it stood out in the artificial light rather well. The target got entangled by it, and I knew what happened next. She didn't get a chance to struggle for long. I saw movement as the pilot pressed a button on the bazooka itself, activating the DN's worst property. While it appeared like an almost primitive trap, the net was hardwired with incredible tech; with the touch of the button, that tech released electricity throughout the entire net.

X-23's body lit up in blue and white as voltage that my electric rod could only dream about surged through every inch of her body.

Spider-Man and I had both stood up by now. He wasn't saying a word. His mask hid his face, but I felt safe betting he was starting to dislike this idea as much as I was.

"I would have guessed the crazy guy in the suit would have cracked first," the pilot commented, setting the rifle aside. "Guess that's women for you, eh?"

Most people I call in for assistance would say something like that simply to be a jerk. This one in particular seemed to be somewhat fond of me, so there was the smallest chance he was trying some attempt to cheer me up. I appreciated it, but it didn't work well. I watched, trying hard to keep a straight face, as my own men, under _my_ orders, fricasseed my teammate.

"How...bad is it?" Spider-Man asked. He used a normal volume for a voice, which combined with the helicopter to be fairly hard to hear. I didn't blame him for that.

"She's got metal in her body, doesn't she?" I responded back.

He fell dead quiet.

"Then you don't want me to answer that."

Seconds were hours, as far as I was concerned. I couldn't believe it had come to this. Laura is the reason I'm still alive, and I repay her by doing this. I tried not feeling bad, but it didn't work. In the end, no one was to be blamed for this but Wesker.

X-23 had been screaming a lot. That was to be expected. But then more and more time passed, and I realized she hadn't dropped to the floor yet. She wasn't dead, unconscious, or even weak, all of which are common side effects of the DN.

Then the scream changed.

It shifted from despair to rage in less than a second. I squinted my eyes and noticed something else. She was beginning to grow resistant to the pain. Within seconds after that, she brought her arm up. Her claw sliced a gaping hole in the DN's net. The entire thing fell to the ground around her, still sparking uselessly.

She wasn't only freed, but really, really pissed off.

Making things even worse, the first person she looked at wasn't me or Spider-Man. She had her eyes set on the person who had shot the net around her. I urgently smashed in the button on my headset. "Get out of here! Move it!"

The copter began lifting up, but so did X-23. She felt no intimidation by its height and made a jump for it. The machine managed to pull itself into the air a few more feet by the time she reached it. If it hadn't moved, she would have easily gotten on board. I definitely would have needed another ride home.

As it was, she missed and came falling back down. She didn't seem overly upset. I'm sure our blood would be just as good as theirs would have been.

Out of desperation, I looked to the side and saw something startling. On the ground, right where I had left it: Wesker's Magnum revolver. After getting humiliated by X-23, he must have forgotten to grab it. That gun could be instrumental in finishing this, but...

Wait.

I scanned the entire building's roof again and noticed something even better. "The gas...it's gone."

"Yeah. That's what happens after you fart, but do we have to-"

"Spider-Man, the fog!" I interrupted as soon as I realized where that sentence was going. "The wind from the helicopter must have blown all of that fog away!"

The concept was there, right under our noses, and it never occurred to us. The gusts from the helicopter's blades were unmistakable; of course it was bound to get rid of the fog.

Spider-Man took a second to look around, only now noticing the same thing. "Huh. Pretty sad that the propellers were more useful than the high-tech weapon, isn't it? But we're not done yet. Until she breathes enough regular air, she's still running on whatever chemical that was."

I turned my head back to the Magnum. "...Cover me!" I ordered, already making a dash for it.

Like I was surprised. Maybe it was an instinctive guess on my part, or maybe just Murphy's law. X-23 targeted me. No one could say if she, while trapped in that state of rage, had the sense to realize I was trying to grab a weapon, or if it was just bad luck she picked me.

She jumped forward, like a jaguar putting the last touches on prey. I asked Spider-Man to cover me. That's what he did. Except this time, he didn't think fast enough to come up with more parlor tricks. He stopped her the most effective way he knew how.

I gritted my teeth. My anger towards Wesker was reaching a boiling point. I knew where that guy was going, but I had to deal with this first. Finally, I was within distance of the gun. I slid on the ground, grabbing the Magnum as I passed it, then purposely stayed floored. It was quicker than rising up, and my aim wasn't harmed by it.

I pointed the gun at my teammates. They were close by each other. When I saw what truly happened, I closed my eyes for a second, hoping that when I opened them, things would look different. Better.

X-23 had already gotten a set of claws into Spider-Man's torso. They hadn't penetrated through to the other side; he was using all the force he could gather to hold her arm back.

"Take the shot, dammit!"

I'd never heard Spider-Man cuss before. Nor had I heard him behind clenched teeth.

I focused carefully. Spider-Man was standing in front of X-23, so that made aiming hard. I didn't want to severely harm X-23; that made aiming worse. The fact that I didn't want to harm someone with a Magnum revolver was almost too ironic, but there wasn't an option to look back now.

_Bang._

Intense recoil nearly made me hit myself with the smoking barrel of the gun. That was honestly the last thing on my mind at the moment; I watched that speeding bullet like a hawk. Even after pulling the trigger, I kept my breath held. Too much could go wrong too fast.

The gunshot missed Spider-Man's leg by less than two inches. It passed right by him, deciding instead that Laura's leg looked more inviting. To much of my regret, my eyes trailed the bullet a little too well. I saw it insert itself into the front of her leg, and exit clean out the other side. Its velocity didn't even seem affected after that, but then again, I did lose interest in it after that.

That leg gave out from beneath her instantly. With what strength he had left, Spider-Man ripped the claw out from his body, then delivered a kick just to get her farther away. He hit the ground afterwards, clenching his wound and rolling until he was face up.

I tossed the Magnum to the side and scrambled to my feet. I wasn't sure who to attend to first, but it hit me along the way that X-23 might still be hostile. Spider-Man it was.

"Spider-Man!" I knelt down next to him. "Spider-Man, are you all right?"

He tried shooing me off with his other hand. "Great. Dare I say, never been better. I'm fine, Chris."

"You're not fine. Let me look at that wound."

"'You're not fine'?" he retaliated, lifting his head off the ground some. "Do you tell that to all the injured people you come across?"

I smirked. I knew he was in pain, but I shouldn't have been surprised he didn't want me to know it. I offered him a hand up, which was an offer he accepted.

When we both stood up, I took note he refused to move his hand away from where X-23 had dug into him. A question about it was a moment away from coming out of my mouth, but we got distracted.

Coughing. We turned to face Laura, who was laying limply on her side. Her face was scrunched up in pain. It was horrible to think that that was fantastic. No more snarls, evil glares, or frustrated screams; unlike with the DN, she recognized that she was in pain.

The nightmare just might be over.

"Laura-"

Just as I took a step toward her, Spider-Man dropped his hand on my shoulder and clamped down on it. He was looking at my squarely. At least, as squarely as a mask can look at someone. "I think it's best if we part ways here."

That startled me. I looked at the poor X-23, who wasn't even paying attention to us, then back to Spider-Man. "...What? But she-"

His mask folded up. He had altered his facial expression somehow. Judging by the way he motioned toward his injury, I had to assume it was in anger. "You might be able to understand why I'm a little mad at her right now. I know it wasn't entirely her fault, but...Look, even I don't like myself when I'm angry. If everything is back as well as it can be, it would be better if I went off on my own. I don't want to say something I'm just going to regret later."

I took a moment to process everything. He'd spent the night with her -specifically requested she went on the team- and he didn't even want to tell her goodbye? In the same way, there wasn't a point in arguing with him. I had no reason or authority to make him stay. Instead, I stuck my hand out and again smiled triumphantly. "It's been nothing less than an honor, Spider-Man. Where are you off to?"

He shook my hand without hesitation. Even through his injuries, his grip had barely faded at all. "First, I'm going to make sure the Hulk made out okay. After that, I suppose I should check on Dante, too. Then it's time for some midnight web slinging to sort things out. Call me when we can do this again, okay?" He paused for a moment before correcting himself. "Err...Maybe not that last part. Everything before it was pretty fun, though."

"I'll send up the Spider-Signal," I assured him jokingly.

"You better."

Spider-Man took a few steps toward the edge of the building. I recognized it as the side closest to where the Hulk ended up getting pulled down. As I turned to attend Laura, he stopped me by once more setting his hand on my shoulder.

"Chris." I looked at him, but said nothing. I thought it was a good enough cue to go on, but it still took him awhile to keep talking. "Do me a favor...Give Laura the help she needs. She deserves it."

"I'll do all that I can."

He didn't need to ask that. I was intending on doing it anyway. But, I was glad that he did. It meant that he didn't hold much contempt for X-23 after all.

His head bobbed in a nod before he took off running. He leaped off the roof of the building, and seconds later, I heard that now-familiar sound of a strand of web being launched. I stared at the spot that he jumped off of for a moment. As far as costumed vigilantes go, I had to admit, he wasn't so bad.

"He left."

It wasn't a question. If it was, it didn't sound like one. I turned to X-23. To my surprise, she was now sitting up. I looked at her leg, only to find a scab where a Magnum bullet had been. She was healing from one of the most deadly guns out there in minutes.

"Yeah," I said with some reluctance. There wasn't much emotion in her two words, so I didn't know how she felt about it. "He wants you to get better."

"I'll never get better," she said quietly. "I'll never escape that. How you two held me off...No one's done that before."

At least she was thinking optimistically about it.

I sighed. It was such a random question. A random question that needed to be asked. Against my better judgment, I came out with it directly. "Laura."

She'd been staring at the night sky. It was mostly overcast, so she couldn't have been connecting stars. She was more likely trying to connect her life. At the sound of her name, I managed to fully get her attention.

"I'd like it if you came with me."

"What?"

I took slow steps forward. One reason was so I could gather my thoughts. Another was so I could detect any traces of hostility before it became too late. When both of those things yielded decent results, I threw caution to the wind and knelt right beside her. "You don't deserve to live in fear of yourself. The BSAA has some of the top scientists the world's seen. They can find a cure for you. Besides, something you do deserve is another shot at Wesker. Trust me. Stick with me, and you'll have your chance."

She went without words for awhile. I didn't rush her; for the longest time tonight, she had needed to think about most of her words anyway. In the meantime, her head lowered to the ground, then went all the way back to the sky again. Minutes later, I still didn't have an answer.

I wasn't sure what she was thinking, but I wanted to know she was at least thinking about something. I followed her gaze to the nighttime clouds and asked, "See anything?"

"...I'll go."

Not a second more was spent staring at the sky. I jerked towards Laura, then found her still contently looking into space.

"That," she said slowly. Her words came out at a consistently slow pace, almost like she didn't care if they made it out at all. "What you saw tonight. You can try if that will make you feel better, but you aren't going to find a 'cure.' That will always be a part of me. Wesker, though, can go die in a fire. I wouldn't mind being there when that happens."

I smiled, and nearly laughed. I couldn't agree more. For the first time tonight, I was able to relax as I brought my hand up and tapped on my headset. "Come on down, guys. You can say hello to Laura while you're at it."

"Please don't tell me that's the crazy girl," the co-pilot pleaded.

I shook my head, even though he couldn't see it. X-23's leg injury was recovering well, but I still let her put an arm around my neck to support her on the way off the ground. We stood there for a few minutes while waiting for the helicopter to come down.

I looked to the ground, not too far away. Wesker's Magnum. Over in the corner was his helicopter in no better condition than it had been the last time I looked at it. It was even still on fire. Tonight could have gone in a hundred different directions, but it ended up being this one. The one where no one ended up dead. Even if Wesker did get away, it was hard to complain with an outcome like that.

When our ride landed, I heard another comment over my headset.

"Ah, crap. It's the crazy girl."

**-END-**

**A/N: **I want an electric net.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I had a blast writing this entire story, and that I hope you picked up on that. The story might be over, but please feel free to review. I'd love to be aware of anything that was particularly bothersome (especially regarding the first-person perspective). Or just being told your favorite parts is okay too.

As Spider-Man would say while hurling an opponent from one side of the screen to the other: See you later!


End file.
